Not Alone by Sarah K. Jackson EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: Sarah K. Jackson
- Language: English
- Genre: Family Life Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
‘There’s nothing there, Harry.’
‘You were staring. Your eyes are all big.’
‘Sorry,’ I say, whispering – to remind him to use quiet voices next to the
open window. ‘It’s nothing you need to worry about, just grizzling up to
rain I think.’ I force myself to smile. Get a grip, Katie.
And still, I can’t help but glance outside. Eyes scanning the same flat
hard ground that always looks up at me from four floors below, snaked with
algae and moss. The same grey buildings that press in on us all around, with
dappled ivy-strewn alleys running between them. Searching amongst the
rowan trees and snowberry bushes, thick and wild along the crumbling
walkways. Pausing over the leaves piled up where they’ve been blown.
Everything is alive, pink-red, yellow and golden out there, fluttering in the
pale orange light. A scattering of something that could just be fine, powdery
grey snow, if I pretended, swirling across the open air.
Harry shrugs his delicate little shoulder and I realize I’m clutching it
tightly, as if I only need to hang on to him to keep him safe forever. The
kitchen-lounge comes back into focus. Together we lower the sloshing tin
bucket to our feet. The cloudy water swirls with debris and the shield bug –
iridescent-green shell that so mesmerizes me with its precious rare colour,
red ‘socks’ up to its ankles – still thrashes on the surface.
I catch Harry’s wrists before he scoops up the tiny creature. His face
crumples, the bug’s six legs desperately flailing. ‘You know you mustn’t –
we’ve been washing stuff that’s come from outside in there!’
Harry flinches, scrutinizing the almost-clear water fearfully. ‘There’s bad
in it, Mummy?’
‘Could be. You know this. We must always be careful . . .’ I glance at the
wood stove behind me.
‘What if he’s breathed it or eaten it?’ Harry says, a whine creeping into
his voice, the shield bug buzzing at the sides of the bucket.
‘Try this.’ I grab the heatproof glove from beside the stove. Harry’s little
hand is swamped by the thick padded material, but he gently rescues the
shield bug and we watch together as it wobbles out onto the railing with the
disorientation and weak limbs of something too clogged with dust to live
for much longer. Too sick from inflammation or the toxins leached or
bloated by the foreign particles – the slow way. Or just plain suffocating –
usually quicker. Yet creatures like this that can reproduce fast, before they
succumb, seem more successful at surviving in the world After.
‘I’m going to call him a green,’ Harry whispers.
‘A green?’
He nods, eyes bright. ‘’Cause he looks like emerald-dragon-green from
the book. Emer because that’s a brand new secret name and only we know
it.’
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