Free Feral Park by Mark Dunn Page A

appealing by the fact that the clerk was not even aware than his mouth was being emptied of its accumulated moisture in such an objectionable manner. To make the matter yet worse, he did not even seem to see Anna and Gemma, but looked farther on.
    “I cannot even look!” yelped Gemma in mortification from behind the palm of one hand.
    Yet Anna, whilst repulsed at first, quickly collected herself and extended sympathetic understanding and favour upon Mr. Waitwaithe, for he could in no case have intended such a thing to happen, and in Anna’s accommodating way of thinking should not be reprehended for it.
    “Such a thing could happen to anyone, Gemma!” declared Anna to counter her friend’s disgust as the two walked along. “I am certain that it has happened to even the two of us at some time or another.”
    Gemma shook her head. “It has never happened to me, for I do not ever fall asleep sitting in a chair with my head nodded as would a very old man between the soup and cheese courses. But do I hear an admission from you about such a thing?”
    “I own that I have. Moreover, there is no shame in it!” admitted Anna, bristling. “Moreover still, you have only one eye, a false ear and a wooden leg, and are, therefore, not without abundant shortcomings of your own!”
    “What a perfectly horrid thing to say!” Gemma replied, stopping in the lane to fasten an appalled look upon Anna. “This season of cruelty from you seems to have no end. I have been waiting for the final frost, waiting and waiting, and yet it never comes! You hurl icicles and snowballs packed hard like stones and trip me with your mischievous feet upon glazed paths so that I tumble again and again like an uneducable muttonhead, and I grow fagged from the gelid treatment, Miss Anna Peppercorn. I am fagged and hurt and I think that I shall turn and walk away and never see you again. I will extend apologies on your behalf to my cousin John, for you are officially dis-invited to my dinner to-morrow night, but that is all that I shall do for you from this moment forward.”
    Gemma turned to go, but she did not depart. Tears welled within the functioning duct from her natural eye and began to trickle down her cheek. She took her finger and removed some of the moisture to the other cheek so that it would appear that the dry duct operated equally as well. She looked at Anna to discover if her friend was also having herself a cry.
    Anna was not, but there was sympathy of some sort to be found amongst the lineaments of her countenance.
    “Every thing you say is true,” said Anna, though her voice had a catch and she was not easily understood. “I will essay from this point forward to make amends.”
    “You have said this before,” snuffled Gemma in reply. “I no longer believe you.”
    “But this time I will make every effort, I promise. I am a good person, Gemma, but for some reason I do not always present myself to you as such, even though you are my very best friend. For you I cultivate all too often only disapproval and displeasure, and it is wrong. You do not deserve it, and it would destroy me if my thoughtless stupidity were to lead to the end of our close friendship. Even when my disposition directs me to coif the cap of the censorious crosspatch, I will vow to work all the harder to hold my tongue and not lace you.”
    “But what I have yet to understand, Anna, is what is inside of you that tells you to aim those icicles at me? And to toss your barbs always in my direction? To fling erenow those handfuls of nettles that burn and sting? To prod at me with things that catch the skin and pinch? Why, Anna, do you persist in slapping me so willingly with the hand of your angry nature? Why do you kick at me and poke me and correct me when no correction seems required, or simply censure me for the glee of it?”
    “Upon my honour, Gemma, there is never glee in my reprobations! I feel wretched the minute the severe words leave my mouth, you may