The Legend of Winstone Blackhat Read Online Free Page A

even Bodun in the front seat couldn’t think of anything bad to say.
    Winstone kept his mouth shut until Bodun wasn’t around, just in case. What’s
Aggregates?
he asked Aunty Ruth.
    What?
    The other word it said on the trucks.
    Oh. Aunty Ruth thought for a bit. It’s what they put in concrete and roads and stuff, she said after a while, to make them stronger.
    The next day Winstone counted four of his trucks down State Highway One and
aggregates
spattered the windscreen like rain as Ruth overtook and Winstone knelt up on the back seat and waved and three of the trucks waved back. The fourth just gave a blast on its horn and Ruth nearly ran off the road and Marlene got such a fright she fell off the back seat and she laughed until she cried. Then they swung off SH1 inland, and there were no more trucks, and after a while no more cars or white lines and the road grew paler and louder under their wheels until the seal ran out and Ruth was driving down the centre of it, straddling the gravel.
    The red and grey tin roof of their house came up through paddocks of standing hay and a summer evening soft and purpling with rain. It wasn’t bright, but Ruth put her sunglasses on anyway.
    I’m just going to pull in and drop you off, she said, watching the driveway ahead. You kids grab your stuff and go in okay? I can’t stay.
    Winstone and Marlene looked at her big black plastic eyes in the rearview mirror and nodded. They didn’t ask why. There’d been a lot of noise the last time Ruth had stayed.
    Bic was sitting on the top step of the porch. He rose as Ruth’s car bumped up the drive.
    Okay guys, Ruth said. Winstone had his backpack ready over his shoulder. He picked up Marlene’s and held it to his chest.
    Bic padded over, barefoot through the lengthening grass, a can of beer in his hand. He looked like he’d just got out of bed and pulled on his jeans, his jaw jutting prickly and dark, his faded T-shirt crumpled. He leaned on the car, one big hand either side of Ruth’s open window, resting his tinnie on the sill, and he smiled.
    Gidday Root.
    Hey Bic.
    Bic had a roof-mounted Hella lamp of a smile, and while he was giving it to Ruth, Bodun and Winstone opened their doors and Marlene shuffled across and they all got out the other side. Ruth kept the engine running.
    So how was New Zealand’s hottest home baker? She getting on okay up there?
    She’s doing all right.
    Kids behave themselves?
    Yeah they were good.
    So. You coming in?
    I got to get home.
    Where’s the fire?
    I got a friend coming over.
    Oh yeah? What’s his name?
    A girlfriend.
    So call her. Tell her you’ll be late.
    I can’t.
    You could before.
    I got to go. Ruth clunked the car into reverse. I’m late.
    As the car moved off, Bic stood back, spread his arms and laughed. Aw c’mon Root, don’t be like that! I won’t hold you up. It’ll only take a minute.
    Ruth, looking over her shoulder, accelerated towards the road.
    Bic crumpled the can in his hand and lobbed it over the fence. What are you three standing there for? Get your stuff inside.
    Winstone watched Ruth’s car disappear and the first fat spots of rain dampen the dust. He felt a lot more like aggregates than concrete.
     
    Mrs Clarke taught Winstone’s class for a fortnight. She read them
The House at Pooh Corner.
They learned about honey and bees and blew up balloons and played pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Winstone quite enjoyed being Winston minus an e for a week and a half, but then he went off Mrs Clarke even though he knew that wasn’t really fair, because it wasn’t her fault. But he couldn’t help it.
    It was Mrs Clarke who found him behind the boiler shed and pulled off Harry Tait and took Jack Baxter’s phone. She was surprisingly fast and strong, it turned out, for such a scrawny old woman.
    He was spying on girls in the toilets. Harry Tait’s voice crackedwith indignation. He’s a pervert Mrs Clarke.
    He was trying to see them with their pants down, Jack Baxter