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on her to cook and wash and spend money on them, let alone me too. So I wasn’t about to ask her to change her mind.
    It was just that Marten was the best darn place I knew to live. God, what was I talking about, it was the only place I ever did live. Of course, you can almost count the number of people on one hand. Not really, but going by some places in Newfoundland, Marten is pretty small. Probably no more than seven hundred people altogether. But that didn’t matter. In fact, I liked it that way cause it gave us all kinds of room to be roaming around. I could put on the boots and leave the back of the house and inno more than two minutes I’d be up in the country, out of sight of any house in the place. Go on all day then, if I wanted, and not see a single soul.
    You might think a person would get bored silly with nothing to do in a place that small, but no sir, not me. I can hardly think of a morning when I woke up and there wouldn’t be something on my mind that I’d have to look forward to. If it wasn’t going in the woods to check my snares after school, it might be riding around on skidoo. Or setting lobster traps. There was times when I bloody near went nuts trying to get some sleep, I’d be planning that much for the next day.
    And now my whole life was going to be changed. I just kept thinking to myself that St. Albert better not be as bad as the picture of it I had in my mind.
    I got carried away a lot that summer, all the time thinking about things that was gone past and what I would be leaving behind. I should a been planning ahead for when I got to St. Albert instead of moping around in a daydream half the time. I did spend some time out and around with the fellows. Not very much though. Nothing like other summers. In fact, except for some of the times me and Brent spent together, it was the rottenest summer I ever had. Even all the extra baking and stuff Aunt Flo did for us didn’t seem to make it any better.
    Over the years Aunt Flo and me always got along fairly good, I spose, all things considered. Although for as long as I could remember, she was always the kind of person who fussed over you too much. For one thing, any time I ever went over there, say after school to see Grandfatherand maybe have something to eat, she always had to see that I was stuffed right to the gills. No such a thing as one piece of cake. It had to be two or three or she’d figure you didn’t like it. And I wouldn’t get outside the door but I had my pockets stogged full with oranges or bananas or something.
    And sometimes the questions she’d put me through would get right clean on my nerves. I spose it only showed she was worrying about me. I spose that was it. Like if it was either bit cold atall, the first question she’d be sure to put to me was did I have on long underwear. Now, is that any kind of question to get asked you by your aunt? I always said yes, whether I did or not. Lots of times I’d have plenty of things on the tip of my tongue to say to her to cure her of that little habit. But if I ever did and what I said got back to Mom, then I’d a been hung.
    After, though, when I moved over and started to live in her house, all that stuff about her I didn’t notice so much. She was different. She left me alone a lot. And when I got it in my mind to, I done my part to help her out around the house.
    For the two months before I left, I spent most of the time to myself or with Brent. For me, getting along with Brent as good as I done was even stranger than Aunt Flo and me finally seeing eye to eye. Before that the two of us could hardly look at each other sideways but a fight started. It mightn’t a been as bad as that, but we sure got into some vicious arguments. Like a lot of younger brothers, he could be a real pain in the neck when he wanted to be. What use to bug me more than anything was when he’d come home to Mom with these stun stories about