Read 2006 - Wildcat Moon for Free Online

beneath his feet and the icy wind made his teeth chatter uncontrollably.
    As he passed Periwinkle House he heard the tinkle of ancient bone china as the spinster Misses Noni and Agnes Arbuthnot sipped cocoa and listened to posh music.
    A black cat crossed his path. That meant good luck. He watched it creep silkily in through a gap in the kitchen window of Periwinkle House.
    Archie felt for the saint in his pocket. As he passed the door of Skibbereen he could smell herrings dipped in flour hissing and spitting in a pan as big-bellied Mrs Galvini cooked supper and sang softly in a sweet but mournful voice that brought a lump to Archie’s throat.
    Mrs Galvini had no children of her own but in the spare bedroom she had a wicker crib all ready and a pile of knitted baby clothes in pink and blue and yellow. Sometimes he’d seen her in her garden kneeling in the cabbages, looking to see if the stork had managed to leave her a baby but he never had. It wasn’t fair because he gave Mrs Kelly loads and she didn’t even know how to look after them.
    Archie stopped outside Cuckoo’s Nest and held his breath.
    The Kelly family lived in Cuckoo’s Nest, next to the Pilchard Inn.
    He could hear them in there now, squabbling and arguing. He could smell the Kelly smell and it made him gag. Shite from the nappy bucket that festered near the front door and the stink of unwashed bodies: ear wax, sweat and rancid chip fat.
    Archie was terrified of the seven Kelly boys.
    There were four red-faced tiny ones who bawled and bit and spat and licked their own snot off their faces.
    Three big ones.
    Donald was the oldest. Then Kevin and Peter.
    Peter was nice, not like the rest of them. He’d have liked to be friends with Peter.
    Mammy said it was like he wasn’t out of the same litter.
    The other Kelly boys were rough as guts.
    Donald and Kevin waited for Archie behind hedges when he came home from school and bashed him up nearly every day. They gave him dead legs and Chinese burns.
    Wrenched his arm up behind his back and took his Saturday sweet money. They kneed him up the bum and brought tears to his eyes. The worst, though, were the rabbit punches that they gave.
    They could kill people like that but they didn’t care.
    And Mrs Kelly never even told them off if she caught them at it. All she ever said was, “Boys will be boys, Archie, you should toughen yourself up a bit and not be such a fanny.”
    They never laid a finger on him when Benjamin was around, though. They were afeared of Benjamin. Now he was gone the Kellys would be tormenting him all the time.
    Mr Kelly spent half his life hiding in the outside lav and the other half far out at sea, fishing. He never spoke, only grunted, but his wife never stopped; she was a sour-faced old bissom and dirty about herself. Mammy said that in the Kelly house you needed to wash the soap before you used it.
    Archie ducked down and scuttled as quickly as he could past their greasy window.
    From the Pilchard Inn voices drifted out through the porthole windows along with the clink of dominoes and the thud of darts on a well-soaked board.
    He peeped warily inside, careful not to be spotted.
    It looked cosy in the small bar with the fire roaring up the chimney, candlelight glinting off the blue and green glass pots that Nan served the beer in.
    Nan Abelson was behind the tiny bar lifting a glass pot up to the candlelight. She was big and beefy and very beautiful and smiled a lot. She had arms the colour of corned beef and a coiled black plait that swung between her shoulder blades like a hangman’s noose.
    Beneath her fringe she had a scar on her forehead but you only got to see it when she got hot and brushed her hair to one side.
    Nan Abelson could swear like a man.
    She used all the four-letter words when she got mad.
    Fart and Damn; Shit and Piss.
    Nan was tough as old boots and could throw a punch like a kangaroo when her dander was up. No one messed with her.
    Once she pasted Donald Kelly when