Maia Read Free Page A

rubbish-fish-bones, fruit rinds and vegetable peelings, a broken pail, a dirty fragment of blanket, some sticks that Lirrit, playing, had dragged out of the wood-pile and left lying where they fell. An odor of rancid fat mingled
    with the faint, sweet-sour smell of infant's urine. A long oar, cracked a foot above the blade, was standing upright against the farther wall and in the firelight its shadow danced back and forth with irregular monotony.
    Before Maia could answer, the woman, dropping her iron ladle into the pot, turned round and faced her, hands on hips. She stood leaning backwards, for she was pregnant. One of her front teeth was broken short, giving her voice a sibilant, hissing sound.
    "Kelsi's driving in the cows, and a fine time she's taking over it, too. Nala's supposed to be bringing the clothes in off the hedge-that's if no one's pinched them. Where your step-father's got to nobody knows-"
    "I'm done bringing in the clothes," said a cheerful, dirty-faced nine-year-old, sprawled on a pile of wattle hurdles in the shadows. "Can I have some bread now, mum?"
    "Oh, there you are!" replied the woman. "Well, you can just make yourself a bit more useful first, my girl. You can pick all this muck up off the floor and put it on the fire, and after that you can go out and bring in some water. We'll see about bread when you're done." She came over to Maia, who had not moved and was still dandling the little girl in her arms.
    "And where in Cran's name have you been, miss, eh? Leaving us all to break our backs until you choose to come traipsing back half out of your clothes, like a Beklan
shearna
looking for a night's work!" Her voice cracked with rage. "What's that behind your ear, you trollop?"
    "Flower," said Maia. Her mother snatched the bloom and threw it on the floor.
    "I know it's a flower, miss! And p'raps you're going to tell me you don't know what it means to go about wearing a sanchel behind your left ear?"
    "I know what it means," said Maia, smiling sidelong at the floor.
    "So you stroll about like that while I'm slaving here- a great, dirty baggage, strong as an ox-"
    "I'm not dirty," said Maia. "I've been swimming in the lake. You're dirty. You smell."
    Her mother struck at her face, but as her arm swung forward Maia, still holding the child on one arm, caught and twisted it sideways, so that she stumbled and half-fell, cursing. The little girl began to scream and Maia, hushing
    her as she went, walked across to the fire and began ladling soup from the pot into a bowl standing on the hearth.
    "You just let that alone!" shouted her mother. "That's for your stepfather when he gets back. And if there's any left it'll go to your sisters, as have done some honest work. Do you hear me?" she went on as Maia, taking no notice, put down the little girl, carried the bowl over to the table and seated herself on a rickety bench. She snatched up a stick from behind the door. "You do as I say or I'll have the skin off that fat back of yours, you see if I don't!"
    Maia, gulping soup, looked up at her over the rim of the bowl.
    "You'd best let me alone. Might get hurt else."
    Her mother paused a second, glaring. Then, holding the stick out in front of her, stiff-armed and striking clumsily from side to side, she rushed at Maia. The girl, springing to her feet and overturning the bench on the floor, threw the bowl at her. It struck her on the neck and fell to the ground, covering her with the spilt soup. At the same time the point of the stick caught and scratched Maia's forearm, drawing blood. Kelsi, coming in from the cowshed, found her mother and sister grappling across the table, panting as they tugged at each other's hair and aimed slapping blows at heads and shoulders. At this moment the pale sky of nightfall in the open doorway was darkened by a man's figure stooping under the lintel.
    "Cran and Airtha!" and the man. "What the devil's going on, eh? D'you want them to hear you down the other end of the lane? Here, leave