The Orphans of Race Point: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

home, Hallie could smell Manny’s scent—a mixture of drugstore cologne, the sea, and pure meanness. For the first time, she wondered if Mrs. Barretto was right; maybe she shouldn’t have come. But she banished the thought by sitting up extra straight on the couch and smiling like a prim visitor, the book resting on her lap like a lady’s purse.
    Mrs. Barretto emitted a long sigh, then relented. “Gustavo!” she hollered as if the house were a many-winged mansion instead of a winterized five-room cottage. The name reverberated, as did the silence that followed.
     
    F atima Barretto knocked on his bedroom door. “Dr. Nick’s daughter is here to see you. It looks like she brought you a—a present .” Again, she shook her head disdainfully at the common minnows. Then she returned to the living room.
    “Maybe he’s sleeping,” Hallie said, when Gus still hadn’t come out after several, long uncomfortable moments. “I’ll come back some other time.”
    But before she could get away, Gus appeared in the hallway, looking as if he’d just woken up from a nap. His eyes were dark and glistening, but they clearly weren’t crazy. Hallie quickly decided that Gus Silva was just sad—more sad than anyone she’d ever seen. He was so sad he couldn’t utter a single word. Her heart clenched.
    Mrs. Barretto cleared her throat. “Hallie’s come to, um, read to you , Gustavo.” She spoke loudly, as if Gus wasn’t only mute but deaf, too. From the way she emphasized the words, Hallie sensed that reading—especially the passive act of being read to, had never been Gus’s favorite activity.
    Mrs. Barretto picked up the book, and skimmed a few pages. “I was in high school before I even heard of Dickens. Don’t you have something more appropriate?”
    Hallie grimaced, as she always did when anyone referred to her precociousness. “This is one of his books for children,” she said as Gus took a seat opposite her.
    Mrs. Barretto tested its heft and squinted at the small print inside. “Doesn’t look like a kids’ book to me.”
    Gus, however, was focused on the fish.
    “Nick took me to Herring Cove this morning,” Hallie explained. “This big one here—I named him after Johnny Kollel because he’s a bully. And the little one is Silver because—well, just because I thought it was pretty. Now that she’s yours, I guess that makes her Silver Silva.”
    Gus blinked at her with his sorrowful eyes.
    “How about I get you a snack, then I’ll leave you and your pet fish alone,” Mrs. Barretto offered. “That okay with you, Gustavo?”
    Hallie was glad his aunt didn’t call him Voodoo like people in town did. And yet even as she denied the power of his spell, she felt it.
    Mrs. Barretto set down a platter of trutas and two glasses of milk in mismatched tumblers. She’d also retrieved an old fishbowl for Johnny and Silver. It was milky and stained with a ring of algae.
    Though Hallie had never liked the sweet potato pastries, she took a polite nibble. In spite of the sugar and spices, it still tasted like a vegetable to her, and it had to be at least a week old. (Even her father, who adored trutas , said they were only good the first day.) “Mmm . . . thank you,” she said, in the spirit of Nick’s cortesia . The word meant “courtesy,” but when Nick pronounced it in Portuguese, he was giving a name to his personal religion: a profound respect for the unknowable spirit in everyone he met.
    When Gus’s aunt left the room, Hallie discreetly spit her cookie into a napkin. Then she poured the two fish into the cloudy bowl, pulled a small canister of fish food from her pocket, and set it beside Gus. “They’re yours now. If you don’t take care of them, they’ll die.”
    Gus watched everything she did intently, but made no response. Hallie decided there was something comforting in being with a mute. She could say whatever she wanted—or she could just relax and say nothing at all. As for Gus, he seemed to