Shooting Butterflies Read Free Page B

stupid old baby just giggled. He jabbed her hard right in the softest bit of her round tummy. Her smile gave way to confusion as the pain registered. But she had soon recovered and was smiling again at her funny older brother. He gave her a shove and she toppled backwards, banging her head on the floorboards. For a second the smile remained fixed on her chubby face, but as she realised he had meant to hurt, her eyes flooded with tears. He thought she looked like a great beetle, her arms and legs waving around as she struggled to get up, and he laughed his high clear choirboy’s laugh; she always was a clumsy baby. Now she got on to her hands and knees, herfat bottom sticking up in the air, and next she had poddled off to get her comfort, a brown velveteen puppy called Father. She had barely begun the cuddle when the brother was by her side, making a grab for the puppy. She ran, the puppy close to her chest. Being chased, even in fun, scared her and although she knew, really, that it was only her big brother coming after her, she panicked, scenting a pack of wolves or maybe Red Indians on horseback, whooping and whirling their bows and arrows in the air. She stumbled and fell and, as she lay sprawled on the floorboards, he grabbed Father and swung him round his head, shouting triumphantly as he ran off towards the fire. Dangle, dangle. Father, held by his stubby tail, dangled for his life. His plump little owner struggled to her feet and went to his rescue. Dangle, dangle, close to the fire. ‘Hot dog,’ the brother laughed. ‘Hot dog, hot dog.’
    With an anguished yelp, the baby snatched her puppy and swung her little fist at her tormentor, sending him tumbling on to the fireguard and into the fire, barbecuing his freckled cheek on the grid of the guard.
    â€˜She’s obsessed with that toy,’ the father was saying on the landing outside the children’s bedrooms that night. ‘And why does she call it Father? Why not Daddy or Gabriel if she had to call a velveteen dog after me?’
    â€˜I asked her that,’ the mother said. ‘It’s nothing to do with you. She’s called him after Father O’Toole because, she says, Father O’Toole is important. It seems to make sense to her.’ The mother sighed. ‘She’ll have to be punished. She’s quite old enough to know that what she did was very naughty.’
    â€˜I don’t expect she meant her brother to fall into the fire,’ the father said.
    The baby lay trembling in her bed. What would her punishment be? In her brother’s fairy-tale books people had their tongues cut out. But the grown-ups kept telling her to talk, so they probably wouldn’t want to do that. In those books they also rolled people down hills in barrels of a thousand nails. Her brother had explained that it meant barrels with nails hammered through so that all the spikes were on the inside sticking into you as you rolled. But she was fat and the only barrel she knew of was the barrel of woodenbricks in the nursery. She would never fit and her father always said that they did not have enough money, so they would hardly go out and buy a new one, just for her. In some ways she was clever for her age, so she knew that a thousand nails as well as a barrel would cost a lot. Then she remembered another line in her own book of stories. ‘You will lose the thing you love best.’
    She yelped in distress and clutched Father to her chest. That would be her punishment! They would take Father from her. She lay stock still, as if by not moving, by staying absolutely silent, they would not be found. Once she heard footsteps approach on the landing, pausing by her door. Then it went quiet. But as the minutes ticked away on her red clock she could bear it no longer. What if she did it herself; the punishment? They might leave it if she got there first. She felt calmer now. When the idea came into her head she felt scared but she knew too