Poking Seaweed with a Stick and Running Away from the Smell Read Online Free

with my hand sticking out from under the blankets holding onto the red painted handle. Molly was mine and nobody else’s but one night Andrew said that Molly was his, so I booted him on the shins and ran away and he ran after me and attacked me with the Hoover and of course it all ended in tears.
    It was a hot day that day and I sat on the back step even though Mum said I’d get piles if I did. I didn’t care. With the sun on my face I looked down at the tar on the path beneath my feet; the heat of the day had softened it and I pressed my fingers into it and their imprints remained. Molly sat beside me at the side of the step and every now and again I stood up and pushed her up and down the soft tar, looking back to marvel at the wheel tracks and footprints we left behind. Then Mum told me to park Molly somewhere and to get inside and have my tea straightaway but I told her I didn’t want to leave Molly outside on the soft tar by herself and she told me to stop being stupid and if I didn’t get inside and have my tea that minute, she’d put Molly in the loft and shut the lid and that would be the end of that. So I did as I was told and came inside and had my tea.
    After my tea I was supposed to do the hoovering and the dishes but I couldn’t wait to get back out to Molly and the sunshine and the soft tar. Just as I was about to put the last of my fried eggs on toast in my mouth, I heard my da pull his lorry into the driveway, then I heard the awful screeching of tyres and the mangling of metal. I dropped my fork and ran to the back door just in time to see one of Molly’s wheels roll past the step where I’d get piles and out the gate and onto the street. Then I looked across at my da who was getting out of his lorry to see what the hell he had run over, and that’s when I saw Molly crushed under the front wheel of my da’s lorry and almost mangled beyond recognition.
    I ran to the scene but there was nothing I could do. Molly was dead and my da was shouting and screaming and right bloody mad at me ’cause the red paint from Molly’s handle had marked the silver bumper of his lorry and that’s when he threatened to give me the hiding of my life.
    I took off down the driveway after Molly’s runaway wheel and when I caught it, I picked it up and cradled it in my cupped hands then ran to my room where I knew I’d be safe and far away from my da and his shouting. I wished I hadn’t parked Molly outside with the sun shining and the tar melting, but I did, and now Molly was gone and my da says that’s what you get when you’re selfish and careless and don’t look after toys that he pays good money for and is it any wonder he takes a drink and comes home in a right bloody temper.
    My da was right. I hadn’t taken good enough care of Molly and I felt ashamed and I cried. I kept Molly’s wheel under my pillow for days and my da told me to stop snivelling and to grow up and then he told me I shouldn’t be wasting my time playing with stupid dogs on wheels and soft tar when there was dishes and hoovering to be done. And then he said I was so careless I didn’t deserve anything and I knew he was right, ’cause then I remembered the time I took Bluey our budgie out of his cage to clean it and when I wasn’t looking Quackers, our one-eyed cat, sneaked up from behind and ate Bluey right there in front of me. Bluey put up a struggle mind you, but it wasn’t enough and once the struggle was over, his blue and yellow feathers were everywhere and I had to get the Hoover out before my da got home. My da said Bluey died because of my carelessness and now look, Molly was dead too.
    With Molly dead and the memory of Bluey’s blue and yellow feathers still fresh in my mind, I made a promise to myself right there and then there would be no more time for fun and track marks and fingerprints in soft tar and for pushing stupid stuffed