One Year in Coal Harbor Read Free Page B

rat pieces. Those stringy little legs in there,” said my mother.
    “Even if they are, why ruin it for him?” said my father quietly from behind his paper.
    My mom didn’t bother answering but bustled into the kitchen with a pile of cookbooks and plopped them on the table between us. We had six cookbooks, all from the Fishermen’s Aid Society’s yearly cookbook sale, the proceeds from which went to help fishermen’s families who were suffering for one reason or another. There was never very much money in the fund. Just enough to maybe pay a grocery bill or buy school clothes. I would probably have gotten some of it when my parents disappeared if Uncle Jack hadn’t shown up when he did.
    As if reading my thoughts, my mother said, “I ought to try to find another fund-raiser for Fishermen’s Aid. The cookbook sale is never enough.”
    “But I’m collecting a whole notebook of new recipes,” I protested. “Ones we haven’t used yet. Evie even called me with her freeziolla recipe. Well, I suppose I could always turn my recipes into a real cookbook and send it to a real publisher. A fund-raiser for me. How do you get something published?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s that easy,” said my mom. “Who is that lady who lives on the edge of town who published a book about cats? She sure made it sound hard. She said being a writer was like being a cross between a ditchdigger and a pit pony.”
    My dad snorted. “A writer? Wasn’t her book just a bunch of photographs of cats?”
    “Never mind, I just had another idea. Maybe we’ll do a
youth
cookbook this year with Coal Harbor’s youths’ favorite recipes or something. Let’s think about it. A different twist would be good. I bet people are getting tired of the same old thing. Mrs. Cranston entered her shepherd’s pie recipe three years in a row and I haven’t had the heart to tell her because, frankly, I suspect it’s the only thing she knows how to cook.”
    “Maybe you should write Miss Honeycut,” said my father from behind his paper.
    “The only thing I ever saw her make was lemon cookies for Uncle Jack. And besides, she doesn’t even live here anymore,” I said.
    “No, about money for the aid society,” said my dad.
    “Oh, that Miss Honeycut!” said my mother, snorting with derision.
    Miss Honeycut was our school guidance counselor when my parents disappeared at sea and had been instrumental in getting me pulled out of my happy situation with Uncle Jack and put into a foster home. This had worked out fine because the foster home had been with Bert and Evie but she hadn’t
known
it would work out fine. Miss Honeycut just wanted me out of the way so she could go after Uncle Jack. Her father had owned about all of the North of England and she had inherited it at hisdeath and gone back there. And that had been the end of Miss Honeycut, or so I had thought.
    “Besides, Miss Honeycut may be rich but she’s cheap,” I said.
    “Maybe so,” said my father. “But she is about to lay a pack of money on Coal Harbor. Listen to this.”
    He began to read an article. Miss Honeycut apparently had written the mayor that she was to disperse some charitable funds on behalf of her dead father and she wanted to do something for Coal Harbor, where she said she had spent some of her happiest years. This, I’m certain, was news to everyone in Coal Harbor. She always looked like she had a pickle up her nose. She always looked at me as if my being
in particular
was pickle-worthy. But she looked as if quite a lot of other people were a source of great misery too, so I never really took it personally. It
did
make me feel vaguely apologetic whenever I was in her presence. Loneliness surrounded her like a little fog, and you could tell she didn’t like it but had been taught not to complain. She was valiantly doing the best with what she had. She surrounded herself with colleagues and she talked about her friends all over the world. And she told