Free Crow Lake by Mary Lawson Page B

if cattle get into a field. A whole crop can go down.”
    “I know that, Aunt Annie! I’ve been working on that farm for years! Laurie knows it too! There were no cattle in either field. Anyway, I’m not talking about just today, I’m talking all the time. Old Man Pye’s after him every minute of the day.”
    He was trying hard not to be snappy but I could hear edges in his voice. He was so mad at Luke he didn’t feel like talking at all, far less about Mr. Pye.
    Aunt Annie sighed. “Well it’s too bad, but there’s no need to go calling him insane. Most fathers and sons go through a bad patch from time to time.”
    “This is some bad patch,” Matt said. “This is a bad patch that’s been going on for fourteen years, getting worse—”
    He stopped. He’d noticed at the same time as I did that Bo was behaving strangely. She’d pulled out her thumb and her hands were half raised and her eyes were stretched wide. She looked like a cartoon of somebody listening.
    “What in heaven’s name’s she up to now?” Aunt Annie said crossly, and Bo said, “Uke!” and twisted around, and sure enough, there he was, coming down the drive.
    “Right,” Matt said, putting down his knife and fork and pushing out his chair. “Now I’m going to kill him.”
    “You sit where you are, Matt. We don’t need any of that.”
    He didn’t seem to have heard her. He headed for the door.
    “You sit down, Matthew James Morrison! Sit down in your seat and hear what he has to say!”
    “I don’t care what he has to say.”
    “Sit down!”
    Her voice was shaking, and when I looked at her, her chin was wobbling and her eyes were strained and red. Matt looked at her too. He flushed. He said, “Sorry,” and sat down.
    Luke came in. He stopped in the doorway and looked at us. “Hi,” he said.
    Bo crowed and held her arms out, and he picked her up. She buried her face in his neck and kissed him passionately. He said, “Am I too late for supper?”
    Aunt Annie’s chin was still wobbling. She swallowed, and said, “There’s some left. It’s cold though,” without looking at him.
    Luke was looking at Matt, who was staring at him. “That’s okay,” he said absently. “I don’t mind it cold.”
    He sat down and dumped Bo on his lap.
    Matt said, “Where. Have. You. Been,” in the most deadly level tone.
    “In town,” Luke said. “I went to see Mr. Levinson. Dad’s lawyer. I had some things to sort out. Some things I needed to know. I can eat all those potatoes, if no one else wants them.”
    “And you couldn’t have told us you were going.” Matt’s voice was flat and hard and thin as a fish knife.
    “I wanted to get things sorted out before I mentioned anything. Why?” He looked around. “Has there been a problem?”
    Matt made a sound in his throat.
    Aunt Annie said, “Never mind, Luke. Just tell us now.”
    “Can I eat my supper first? I haven’t eaten all day.”
    “No,” Matt said.
    “What’s eating you anyway? Okay! Okay! Calm down! I’ll tell you—it’s not that complicated. Basically, I’m not going to teachers’ college. I’m staying here. The four of us are staying here. I’m looking after you guys. It’s all legal, I’m old enough and everything. We’ll have the money I would have used to go to college—not from the house, obviously, because we won’t sell it, but the rest of it. We’ll need more than that, but I can get a job. I can work nights—from when you get home from school, Matt, so’s you can look after Kate and Bo. It’d probably be in town though, so we’d need a car, so we’ll have to spend some money on that, but Mr. Levinson says he’ll keep his eyes open for an old one for us. I told him you wanted to go to university and he said we should talk to Dad’s bank about a loan, they might be sympathetic. Obviously you’d have to win a scholarship but since you’re a genius that’s no problem, right? Anyway, we don’t have to worry about that yet. The main thing