Puppy Fat Read Free Page B

since.’
    â€˜Kill you stone dead, loneliness can,’ said a man.
    Keith stared at the stretcher.
    A dreadful feeling was growing in his guts.
    What if they were right?
    What if loneliness could kill people stone dead?
    Even people who were only thirty-six and thirty-seven and who were perfectly healthy apart from a bit of sagging and wobbling?
    The people in the crowd chewed their lips while the ambulance officers heaved the body on the stretcher into the back of the ambulance.
    Keith realised his chest had gone tight.
    His eyes were hot and prickly.
    Mitch Wilson was staring at him.
    â€˜Did you know him?’ asked Mitch.
    Keith turned away, blinking back tears.
    There were some things you couldn’t expect a ten-year-old to understand, even one who was abnormally tall for his age.
    Keith squeezed his way through the crowded market.
    This is ridiculous, he thought.
    Here’s Mum and Dad doomed to an early grave and I’m off buying tropical fruit. He tried not to think about it.
    Mum and Dad’s bodies being carried out on their lonely settees while the neighbours muttered about how tragically young they were.
    A sad-faced minister at the funeral saying how their lonely deaths could have been avoided if only they’d done something about their leg veins.
    Keith sent a stern message to his brain.
    Stop it.
    Concentrate on the shopping.
    He peered through the jostling crowd at the various stalls.
    There must be pineapples or coconuts here somewhere, he thought.
    Then he saw it.
    A bundle of long greeny-gold sticks leaning against a van behind a stall.
    Sugar cane.
    As Keith pushed his way over to the stall he remembered the first time he’d chewed into a sweet, juicy length of sugar cane.
    At Tracy’s place in Orchid Cove.
    Tracy’s Aunty Bev had given it to him and while they’d chewed she’d told him all about her work as a beautician.
    Keith smiled as he remembered Aunty Bev’s huge plastic parrot earrings and how they’d jiggled each time she’d given Tracy some beauty advice.
    Tracy had rolled her eyes a lot, specially when Aunty Bev had explained that a kid with Tracy’s fair skin would look much better cane-toad hunting in a lighter shade of gumboot.
    But she’d had to admit that Aunty Bev’s motto was a good one.
    â€˜If you want people to take notice, dazzle the buggers.’
    Even though the market was full of people yelling about how fresh their caulies were and how their spuds were lovely, Keith could hear Aunty Bev now in his head, as clearly as he had in Tracy’s back yard under the brilliant tropical blue sky and the black smoke from Tracy’s dad’s barbecue.
    â€˜Dazzle the buggers.’
    Keith stopped pushing his way towards the sugar cane.
    An idea was sizzling in his head like one of Tracy’s dad’s sausages.
    Of course.
    The mistake he’d made at the art show was to paint Mum and Dad the way they actually were.
    Wobbly bottoms and dodgy legs.
    That wasn’t going to dazzle anyone.
    What he should be doing was painting Mum and Dad the way they could be if they pulled their fingers out and got a grip on themselves and started to think positive.
    Keith gave a huge grin.
    â€˜Thanks, Aunty Bev,’ he said.
    Then he turned and pushed and wriggled his way out of the market as fast as he could.
    â€˜A mural?’ said Mr Dodd.
    Come on, thought Keith desperately, you own the biggest hardware shop for about six streets, you must know what a mural is.
    â€˜It’s a large painting on a wall or other vertical surface,’ said Keith.
    â€˜I know what a mural is,’ said Mr Dodd, following Keith out into the street, ‘I’m just not sure if I want one.’
    He put his hands into the pockets of his dustcoat and looked doubtfully up at the side wall of his shop.
    â€˜It’ll brighten up that dirty brickwork no end,’ said Keith.
    Mr Dodd frowned.
    â€˜I was planning to rent that