Read Little Bird for Free Online Page B

felt gluey with sleep and my brain was tight and grumpy.
    â€˜What about the dresses?’ I asked, blinking as I climbed into the car.
    â€˜Colette wants to make them. She wants to adapt some vintage fifties sundress pattern.’
    â€˜Like the dresses in Grease ?’ I yawned, trying to remember if Grease was fifties or sixties. Or was it seventies?
    â€˜I don’t want a homemade wedding. I want to do it properly. I want everything to be perfect.’
    I nodded, yawning. I tuned out again. The night blurred past, the dark streets and the pooling streetlights.
    I wasn’t thinking about weddings. I was thinking about Maisy, the weight of her in my arms as she snuggled into me and drifted off to sleep.

    On Monday at recess I was standing in line at the cafeteria, waiting to buy Tegan a Coke. Tegan was still barely on speaking terms with me. I hated myself for being such a suck, but life was easier when Tegan was talking to me.
    â€˜Hi,’ a low male voice said close to my ear. ‘Rosie-lee, isn’t it?’
    I turned around. It was Spence. He wasn’t that much taller than me and his blue eyes looked deeply into mine. He smiled at me. My heart beat faster. Behind him, the overheated, airless cafeteria began to spin.
    â€˜Ruby-lee.’
    â€˜Right, Ruby-lee. I heard on the grapevine that you looked after my princess on the weekend.’
    I nodded.
    â€˜Isn’t she absolute perfection?’ Spence asked.
    My tongue was dry in my mouth. I’d got the impression from Colette and Shandra that Spence wasn’t interested in Maisy. ‘She’s adorable,’ I croaked, as if I hadn’t used my voice for months. I struggled for something interesting to say, but my mind was a whirl. The faint syrupy scent of Spence, like Maisy’s anzac biscuit smell, clouded my head.
    He pulled out his wallet and flashed it open.
    â€˜You’ll appreciate this. I don’t show many people.’
    I looked down at a photograph of Maisy as a sleeping newborn. She looked different, all curled up and pale like a witchetty grub, but her face was the same, her closed eyes, her puckered lips, like she’d been born with a kiss on her mouth.
    â€˜Oh,’ I breathed.
    Spence had stepped around beside me to look at the photo, and my blood quickened when our shoulders touched.
    â€˜That’s my girl,’ he said in his husky voice, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose and fell at his breath.
    We reached the front of the queue. The woman serving handed Spence a coffee in a paper cup. ‘Here ya go, Darls. For my best customer.’
    â€˜Thanks, Mary. You’re the only one who can give me what I want the way I like it. When are you going to throw all this in and marry me?’ Mary giggled. I’d never seen her so much as crack a smile before. Spence took his coffee and sipped. ‘Gotta run.’ He winked at me. ‘See you again, Ruby-lee.’
    â€˜ You’re not going to have his baby too, are you?’ Tegan said, after I’d stupidly told her about the photograph.
    â€˜Get stuffed,’ I said, but a rosy blush crept over my cheeks.
    â€˜You fancy him!’ Tegan shrieked.
    â€˜No!’
    â€˜Good. He’s fully old and creepy. Teachers shouldn’t hang out with students – it’s so wrongtown.’ I didn’t say anything. I was remembering him brushing up against me, and the Maisy-sweet scent of him. ‘So are we wagging English, or what?’ Tegan asked. ‘Did you do that memory piece yet?’
    â€˜Oh crap. I forgot.’
    â€˜Let’s go into town. Come on, I’ll be your best friend.’
    â€˜Why not?’ I was just thrilled that Tegan was talking to me again.
    That week Spence went out of his way to say hello to me everyday, which I could see made the music girls jealous. I felt strangely special when the girl groupies who dogged Spence’s every step muttered about me and stared at