Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock (general ebook reader .TXT) 📗

Gina had her own things to deal with and didn’t appreciate having someone else’s kid dumped in her lap. Or her dogsled.

“Whatever,” she said. “Stay here. I’m going to get a treat for Alpaca.”

Inside she walked toward the wooden wine barrel full of dog biscuits that sat in the middle of the room. Honestly, the place was nothing more than a log cabin pop-up store that catered to locals, so dog treats were the best-stocked item, followed by Twinkies, motor oil, herring bait in the summer, and assorted whiskeys all year round. The prices were ridiculous, though. Who needed a toothbrush bad enough to pay ten bucks for it? Her dad had carved her one out of a carrot once, telling her to make do until they could go to the bigger store in town, where things were much cheaper.

Just pushing open the door and walking inside had made Gina miss her mother so much she thought she might have to sit down. Would she ever not be overwhelmed by this place? It was one of her oldest memories, them coming here together on the sled. But it was such a long time ago she felt silly that her legs still reacted this way, going all wobbly beneath her.

Before Gina had been even Poppy’s age, her mom had stopped putting her on the caribou skin in the bed of the sled and stopped laughing at the way Gina hid her face when the poop came flying out of the dogs’ butts as they ran, her little head just at the right height for the smell to come wafting back into her nose.

Gina had loved it when the sled had swung up onto the snowbank, and she’d leaned side to side, afraid to fall out but also not, because she could hear her mom’s crisp, high laugh saying it was okay; nothing bad could happen to her while they were together.

And when they got to the store, Oliver, the owner, who had the spikiest whiskers anybody had ever seen, would give Gina a hot chocolate and she’d melt her eyelashes over the steam. Then she’d ask for an ice cream, and everyone thought that was hilarious, which made Gina feel like she’d said something clever, but she didn’t know what.

“Why, hello there,” a voice said somewhere behind her shoulder blades, knocking her back to the present and making her turn around, hoping to see Oliver smiling at her like the Ghost of Christmas Past.

But Oliver had died years ago, and this new version of him was thinner, way more clean-shaven. And he was smiling at someone else.

Poppy had followed her inside, even though Gina had told her to wait in the sled.

“Elizabeth was cold,” Poppy said to both the man, who was already handing her hot chocolate in a Styrofoam cup, and to Gina, who looked like she wanted to throttle her.

“We aren’t staying long enough for hot drinks,” Gina said, aware that nobody was pouring cocoa for her. “And there is no Elizabeth.”

“She didn’t mean that,” said Poppy to the empty air beside her. The man smiled at the space just beyond Poppy’s right ear and genially played along. “Hello, Elizabeth. Would you like some cocoa too?”

Poppy giggled. “She’s a mermaid,” she told the man, blowing on her drink. “Her tail was starting to freeze outside, so I brought her in. When she warms up, she can grow legs, and then she can ice-skate with me and Gina.”

She smiled at Gina as if they were best friends. The man seemed to find all this incredibly charming. Gina wanted to barf.

“My niece runs a summer camp down on the Peninsula,” he said. “Maybe come summer, you and Elizabeth would like to go for a week or two?”

Why would anyone pay money to be in the outdoors? Gina wondered. Then she worried that maybe she’d said it out loud.

“You could make some friends. Maybe Elizabeth would meet some other mermaids too,” he added.

Oh, for God’s sake.

“We should get going,” said Gina. “What do we owe you for the cocoa?”

He waved his hand in the air, batting her question away.

“Mermaids and lovely young ladies always drink on the house.”

Gina grabbed Poppy roughly by the shoulder and dragged her out the door. She noticed that Poppy’s right hand was determinedly clutching the air, as if Elizabeth would be left behind if she let go.

“I would appreciate it if you listened when I told you to stay put,” she hissed.

“But Elizabeth needed to thaw out her tail.”

Gina untied Alpaca as he nuzzled her hand for the treat. She turned back to see Poppy climbing into the sled and then lifting the air with both hands and setting nothing into the seat next to her. She gently wrapped the caribou hide around the empty space, whispering into the cold air so her breath looked like cartoon bubbles hovering over her head. “It’s okay. If your legs don’t grow back in time, you can keep your tail tucked under this hide and sit in the sled while we skate.”

Alpaca started to pull them forward and then sloped into a run, making Gina squint into the cold, gratefully feeling her eyes begin to tear as they picked up speed. The only thing she could appreciate about Elizabeth just then was that Alpaca was unfazed by the extra passenger.

At the pond Gina threw on her skates, grabbed the shovel, and set off to clear the ice. For all she cared, Poppy could catch up or she could just sit there and keep talking to Elizabeth about rainbow houses and cotton-candy pillows and whatever the hell else nonsense the girl was on about.

Gina glided out onto the ice and felt the connection of the frozen water beneath her metal blades. She’d been skating all her life, and the movement itself was a welcome escape from her overworked brain. She leaned into it with everything she had, floating across the pond’s surface as she cleared herself a path.

She didn’t know how