A Greyhound of a Girl Read Free

don’t think I’ve seen her,” said Scarlett.
    Mary had added milk and salt to the egg. She lowered the first slice of bread into the mixture.
    â€œWhat’s her name?” said Scarlett.
    â€œDon’t know,” said Mary.
    She put the frying pan on top of the cooker and turned on the gas. She loved the whoosh the gas made when it sparked, and she loved the blue color of the flame. It was much more interesting than red. She dropped the butter into the pan and watched it melt and start to fizzle. Then she lowered the first slice of egg-and-milk-soaked bread.
    â€œI’ll ask her the next time,” she said. “She’s nice. And so is this French toast.”
    The first slice was for Scarlett.
    â€œThank you!” she said. “It’s lovely!”
    â€œEat it first,” said Mary. “Then tell me.”
    â€œI am! It’s even lovelier!”
    They ate three slices each.
    â€œReady?!” Scarlett asked, as she dropped the plates and cutlery into the sink. She tried to sound even more enthusiastic than usual. But Mary’s mother hated this part of the day—this journey that had shoved itself into their routine every day for the past five weeks—just as much as Mary hated it.
    â€œOkay,” said Mary.

ary didn’t like the hospital. She hated the smell of the place, and the noise, and the people in the corridors crying and holding each other, and the sick people in their dressing gowns at the front door, smoking and coughing. The place frightened her. Even the name, Sacred Heart Hospital, scared her a bit. The Sacred Heart, people called it.
She’s in the Sacred Heart
. Mary imagined a huge bloody heart with a squelchy door that you had to squeeze through, and blood dripping from the ceiling. She knew it was silly. The hospital was actually a gray building that didn’t drip blood at all, although water leaked in one of the corridors. But there were all sorts of warnings about swine flu, or H1N1, and winter vomiting and coughing and sanitizers and washing your hands and paying your bills, all over the walls and doors. She hated it, not because she was afraid she’d catch the swine flu orthat she’d start vomiting on the first day of winter. It was the atmosphere of the place—all the sickness and warnings. Mary loved her granny, but she didn’t like having to go to see her—and that made her feel bad too.
    Her granny was very sick, but also very cheerful. Her smile got bigger and wider when she saw Mary.
    â€œGet up here beside me,” she said.
    â€œOkay,” said Mary.
    She took off her boots and climbed up on the bed and lay down beside her granny.
    â€œOh, my, Granny,” said Mary. “What big teeth you have.”
    It was a Mary-Granny joke that went back to the time when Granny had first read her
Little Red Riding Hood
, when Mary was only five. (Although Mary’s granny’s teeth actually were quite big.)
    Her granny smiled again.
    â€œAll the better to eat you with, my dear,” she said.
    â€œStart at my feet,” said Mary.
    â€œThey’re too far away,” said her granny. “You’re growing too fast.”
    â€œI know,” said Mary. “I’m really good at growing.”
    â€œShe’ll be as tall as you, Mum!” said Scarlett.
    â€œLike all of us,” said Mary’s granny—Scarlett’s mother. “We’re all tall girls.”
    â€œHow are you feeling today?” Mary asked.
    â€œAh, sure,” said her granny. “I’ve felt better. My own growing days are over. But, sure, the bed is grand and comfy. What did you do in school today?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œNothing?” said her granny. “That was my favorite subject. I was always good at doing nothing. Top of the class, every blessed time.”
    Then she fell asleep. And that was frightening too, how quickly, how easily her granny