Read Green Fairy (Dangerous Spirits) for Free Online Page B

inhaled once before going into the kitchen.
    His mother’s paws were deep in the soapy water of the sink. “Lemon bars smell good,” he said.
    “They’re for the church sale Sunday.” She looked up at the window over the sink, at his reflection. He moved his eyes to the reflection of hers. In them, he saw the destruction of his fragile good mood before the words escaped her lips. “Sol, your father…”
    “I don’t need the car.” He said it only to annoy her, as his eyes traveled down the front of the refrigerator, mapping the familiar pattern of travel magnets and notes. He played with a Rosy Arches State Park magnet that held up a meatloaf recipe, sliding a claw under the picture and then letting it snap back.
    “He called Uncle Nolan. He asked if you could work in the cannery again this summer.”
    The magnet clattered to the floor, the recipe drifting after it. Sol’s ears lay flat back. “I can’t do that! My fur gets all sticky, and it’s six days a week—and Uncle Nolan is—”
    “I know. But Sol, if you could just see how much this means to your father…”
    “What about what it means to me?”
    She sighed, and turned on the water to rinse the bowl, holding her paws under it and watching the water course over her fur. “It’s only for another few months, and then the summer. Then you’ll be off to college like Natty is.” She stared down into the sink.
    “It’s half a year. ” The bravado of thinking he could endure anything had not taken into account the peach cannery. Christ. Sol stared into a vision of the hot, endless summer, trudging into the factory that was stifling even at six every morning, coming home at five in the heat of the day, the smell of peach so lodged in his nostrils that he couldn’t smell anything properly. At fifteen, he’d been enticed by the prospect of having two hundred dollars at the end of the summer. Now, he would pay all three hundred forty-one dollars and seventy-eight cents in his account to escape and go live in Millenport with Carcy for the summer.
    Honestly, he’d pay it just to avoid having to talk to super-religious, homophobic Uncle Nolan. Sol’s cousin, the one who’d killed himself, had been Nolan’s son, and he’d slit his wrists in the bathtub after being told to pack his things and get out. Sol hadn’t found out that last part until Patty, Percy’s sister, had cried on his shoulder two Christmases ago. Daddy shouldn’t have kicked him out of the house, even if he was…funny like that. Sol hadn’t realized he himself was “funny like that” at the time; later, he’d tried to talk to Patty about it and she’d denied ever saying a word to him about it.
    “If you’ll just work at the baseball. Is there another position you can play? What about outfield?”
    Sol shook his head slowly. “They stick you in the outfield when all you can do is hit. There’s like five guys who hit better than I do.” Anticipating her objections, he said, “I can’t play first or third either. Maybe shortstop, but Todd is great and all the guys like him.”
    “But if you practice…”
    He wrapped his tail around his leg and resisted the urge to smack the magnet from Fire Beach. “I’ve been playing second base all my life, and I can’t do anything else, and Taric is just better than me! I don’t know what he wants from me. I’m doing the best I can.”
    She picked up the bowl finally and ran it under the water. “Your father doesn’t want you to work in the cannery.”
    “He shouldn’t be talking to Uncle Nolan. If he doesn’t want me to work there, I mean.”
    His mother turned the water off and set the bowl on the counter. Water dripped from it, spreading across the stone countertop. Sol knew what she was thinking, could hear the words as though they were being broadcast from the future. His mother wrapped the dishcloth around her paws. “It’s just, after the soccer…”
    “That was five years ago!” He picked at another of the