Alma Read Free

at the Liffey and offered the tiny apartment. Last spring, knowing that her hours would be cut in the fall, she had found a part-time position at the library in the square two blocks away.
    Setting down her cup, Alma’s mother said, “Your teacher called today.”
    Alma’s fork with half a french fry pinned on the end froze in mid-air.
    There was a pounding on the inside door. “Clara, we need you!”
    “Quit your roaring—I’ll be along in a minute,” Clara grumbled too low for her boss to hear. “I’ll tell you about it later,” she said to Alma, rising and taking her plate and cutlery to the sideboard beside the sink. “Coming, Conor!”
    Alma couldn’t move. Miss McAllister knew! Alma was a thief, and now she’d been caught. She thought of the crayon ends in the tin box beside her books. What would happen now?
    “Relax, dear,” Clara said, pushing her chair against the table. “You’ve gone pale as a haunt. It’s good news this time.”
    She kissed Alma on her forehead and pulled open the inside door. “Remember to put the latch on behind me.” And she disappeared.
    Alma sat where she was. How could it be good news? Was Miss McAllister toying with her? Being cruel? Miss McAllister was strict, and sometimes at the end of the day she was grumpy, but never cruel. Perhaps she hadn’t been phoning about the crayons, perhaps it was something else. But what?
    Alma heated water in the kettle, then washed the dishes in the sink under the window that looked out on the alley. She worked slowly, anticipating the moment she would curl up on the couch in her room and lose herself in a book. She dried the plates and tea mugs and cutlery and put them away. How nice it would be if all the dishes had the same pattern, if the cutlery was heavy sterling, if there was a proper milk jug and a proper sugar bowl instead of a chipped teacup with a tarnished spoon. Alma wiped the table down with the dishcloth, swept the plank floor and put the broom and dustpan behind thecurtain that hid the cubbyhole where coats were hung.
    When she had filled the kettle again and set out the tea things for her mother’s return after midnight, she turned on the night light beside the toaster, switched off the overhead bulb, checked the locks on the inside and outside doors and left the kitchen.
    Alma’s room was also the sitting room. There were a couch, which pulled out to a bed, and an easy chair with a threadbare rug between. Under the window was a bookshelf made of bricks and boards. The top shelf held books borrowed from the library, along with a cookie tin in which Alma kept important things, like the small pocket knife she had found in the alley last spring, a pencil sharpener, paper clips, a brooch with the pin broken off—and, recently, almost a dozen crayon stubs of different colours. Alma thought again about the phone call from Miss McAllister and wondered if she should throw the crayons away. Reminding herself that her mother had said the call was good news, she decided to wait.
    The bottom shelf was given over to Alma’s own books. Alma’s mother had read to heralmost every night when Alma was little. She had encouraged Alma to get her library card as soon as she was old enough, but drew the line at buying new books.
    “It’s not a waste of money, exactly,” Clara had said, “but it’s cash we can ill afford.”
    But once in a while she would buy Alma books at the Turnaround, a used book store on Reedbank Road, and so there was a row of picture books and novels on the bottom shelf—the
The Rianna Chronicles, Hallsaga, Lords of the Marshlands
—some a little the worse for wear, but hers to reread whenever she liked. The honoured place on the row was given to the Centreworld Trilogy and the Alterworld Series of four books, all by RR Hawkins. They were Alma’s favourites. She treasured them most because of their stories and because they were a matched set with real cloth covers, scuffed to be sure, and each with DISCARD