Free Blue Vengeance by Alison Preston Page A

it because everyone else did. He wondered for the first time if in reality no one liked tobogganing. He hoped so. Cookie liked the post-tobogganing part the best: the indoor part with cocoa and baby marshmallows.
    Skating was different. She took to the ice, sailed across it. Forwards like a speed skater, backwards with a grace she shared with no one else on the ice. There were three rinks at the Norwood Community Club: two for hockey and one for “pleasure.” Cookie had owned the pleasure rink, a boy named Butch Goring, the hockey rinks; people stopped to watch both of them. But that was a long time ago, when she’d had a friend or two. He hadn’t known one of them might have been Janine. Cookie had hung up her skates a few years ago.
    â€œToo busy,” she’d said when Danny asked her why.
    He realized now that it was probably true. She had taken over most of their mother’s responsibilities as her illness worsened, and Barbara Blue came to rely on her more and more.
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    â€œWhat are you thinking about?” Janine said now.
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œYou look sad. Are you thinking about Cookie?”
    â€œNo.”
    They had walked the short distance back to his house.
    Janine lined the eggs up on the fence posts, placing pointy bits of gravel from the lane around each one to hold it in place.
    Danny admired her while she worked, pretended to be watching the placing of the eggs. The skin on her bare arms was golden. He wanted to taste it.
    The moment of connection was satisfying, more than with soup tins. The eggs were almost alive. Russell and another dog from the neighbourhood snorfelled around them.
    â€œGo on,” Danny said. “Find something else to do.” He drove them off and turned to Janine. “Would you like to have a go?” The eggs were about half done.
    â€œNo. I’m fine,” she said.
    She put up more eggs as he knocked them down, seeming to enjoy her role as sidekick.
    â€œIt’s you who needs the practice,” she said.
    Again, he wondered if she knew the scope of his intention.

14
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    The next day Janine arrived with a small paper bag half full of ball bearings.
    â€œThese are perfect,” Danny said. “Where did you get them?”
    â€œMy house. My dad had them.”
    Danny stuck his hand in the bag and let the smooth round projectiles run through his fingers.
    â€œWon’t he miss them?”
    â€œNope. He said I could have them.”
    â€œDoes he know what you want them for?”
    â€œHe didn’t ask.”
    She took out her slingshot and placed one of the silver orbs inside the leather pocket. She looked around her for a moment or two and then aimed.
    There was an oak tree in the vacant lot next door. At its apex the glossy leaves stood out against the pastel sky. She took her shot and the topmost leaf disappeared.
    â€œWhat were you aimin’ at?” Danny said.
    â€œWhat I hit.”
    He looked back at the treetop and wasn’t sure now if the leaf was gone.
    â€œPaul thinks leaves are too feeble of a thing to aim at,” said Danny.
    â€œWho’s Paul?”
    â€œMy former friend.”
    They took the ball bearings with them to the icehouse on the corner of Lyndale and Gauvin Avenue. They bought two solid bricks of ice for twenty-five cents apiece and set them up in the scrubby lot behind the building. They shone in the sunlight.
    Janine joined in this time. She was at least as good as he was. They shot till the bag was empty and then gathered up as many of the ball bearings as they could find. They were too precious to leave behind.
    At the river they sat down in the long grass, Janine cross-legged, Danny with his legs sticking out in front of him, supporting himself with his two brown arms. Russell joined them there.
    â€œWhy is Paul your former friend?”
    A fist formed in the centre of Danny’s chest and settled there. It was a tiny fist, the size of a small sour