The Slightly Bruised Glory of Cedar B. Hartley Read Free Page A

tickle your brain instead of threatening it.
    Anyway, Kite wasn’t warming up; he was just sitting with his back against the wall. Kite wears his body in a comfortable, lazy way, so his smile takes ages and ages to happen. He smiled at me then and the smile seemed to frisbee right over towards me in slow motion, and I didn’t have to move; it came right towards me and then it got me.

    I loved being got by it.
    â€˜Oscar’s serenading us,’ he said.
    Oscar lifted his head slowly as if it was as heavy and awkward as a bowling ball.
    â€˜Oh, you two have arrived. Did you notice the grass?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜No, neither did I. There isn’t any.’ His head clunked back to the ground.
    I smiled. Caramella and I took off our shoes.
    â€˜There could, however, have been grass and there could have been a duck on the grass and it could have had a straw in its mouth and it could have been trumpeting a song that we all recognised. It could have been singing “I am the Walrus”. But unfortunately this wasn’t the way it was. There was no grass.’
    Caramella said, ‘And no duck.’
    So far everything was just as it always was; nothing to suggest that something terrible was about to happen. I was swinging my arms around like an excited maypole, Oscar was giving forth on the possibility of ducks, Caramella was still taking her shoes off and Kite was standing up just as if he was about to warm up.
    â€˜Where’s Ruben?’ said Caramella.
    â€˜He can’t come today,’ said Kite.
    My arms stopped flapping and fell to my sides. This was the first tremor.
    Ruben is Kite’s dad and he is also our trainer and our director. He’s absolutely perfect for the job. So it was impossible to imagine how we would manage a training session without him. I looked at Kite. He looked at me. And then I knew something had happened. I knew it by the look that went between us, a look that seemed to thud out of his heart and drop to the floor.
    â€˜Why can’t he come?’ I said and I squatted down to steady myself.
    â€˜He’s in Albury.’
    â€˜Albury?’ said Caramella. ‘You mean Albury-Wodonga? I’ve been there. It’s miles away, halfway to Sydney. There are two towns, one on one side of the river and one on the other. So one is in New South Wales and the other is in Victoria. How’s that! We’ve got cousins there. They’ve got a café. They make meatballs.’
    Obviously, Caramella hadn’t yet sensed what I had sensed. She was prattling on as if it was normal for Ruben to be in Albury. Albury-Wodonga.
    â€˜Why’s Ruben in Albury?’ I dropped into chief sleuth mode.
    â€˜That’s an invigorating place to go,’ Oscar bellowed out from his position on the floor.
    â€˜Invigorating?’ I said, scrunching my nose. ‘I bet it’s not. I bet it’s full of shops selling frocks and car tyres and meatballs and tea towels with native flowers…’ I was being a snob about Albury because already I was mad at the town for taking Ruben away from our rehearsal, and I was getting mighty nervous.‘Why is he there?’
    Kite was rubbing his neck. Seemed to me he was feeling a bit nervous too.
    â€˜He’s looking at a house. We’re going to live there.’
    There it was. He said it. Without even a note of warning. Without even taking the moment in his arms and offering it slowly, tenderly, with some due respect for the momentous blow it could inflict. He just shot the words out his mouth, as if he was spitting out some crumb that had got stuck in a tooth. I had to look at the floor. I saw my feet and they looked like they were going pink, as if the blood was rushing downwards.
    â€˜Why are you going to live in Albury?’ said Caramella, quietly. She looked up meekly from her sneakers.
    Kite kicked at the floor. ‘Dad’s been offered the job of Artistic Director for the