Mud Girl

mud girl

ALISON ACHESON

© Alison Acheson, 2006.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher
or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For
an Access Copyright licence, visit
www.accesscopyright.ca
or call toll-free to 1-800-893-5777.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product
of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living
or dead, is coincidental.

Edited by Barbara Sapergia.
Cover image: “Teenage girl wearing woolen hat” by Jacques Copeau/ Taxi/ Getty Images.
Cover and book design by Duncan Campbell.
Printed and bound in Canada by Gauvin Press.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Acheson, Alison, 1964-
Mud girl / Alison Acheson.

ISBN 1-55050-354-5

1. Title.

PS
8551.
C
32
M
84 2006                jc813'.54                
C
2006-904635-2

10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2

2517 Victoria Ave.
Regina, Saskatchewan
Canada
S4P OT2
www.coteaubooks.com

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial support of its publishing program by:
the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada
through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (
BPIDP
), Association for the
Export of Canadian Books and the City of Regina Arts Commission.

For Maia

One Good Thing

Y
ou can be friendly with someone for only so long before you start to know them, and they know you. Aba Zytka Jones and Horace Boyd have known each other through her three high school years, as long as she's been riding his bus home down River Road. “Time I really knew something about her,” thinks Horace. “Time to put my hand out. There's something not right here.” He's thought that for a long time now. Can't quite put a finger on what it is, though. “She's always alone. She's always on time – that's not right, not at her age, when just about anything can get in the way of your path: a giggly friend, a boy…especially a boy.”

Come to think of it, he's never seen Abi with a friend, boy or girl. Horace wonders if Abi even notices the boy with the shaggy yellow hair who once in a while sits in the back. He
knows the boy sees her, and knows the boy has a worry knot on his forehead when he looks at Abi. Of course, such a worry knot doesn't necessarily mean anything romantic – if anyone even knows that word these days, he thinks. But it means
something
. “No, it's not right. And it's the last day before summer. Today, I'll say something. There's no time like Right Now. The summer is long when you're sixteen.” He remembers that. These thoughts and more go through the head of Horace, the bus driver.

Abi, on the other hand, would prefer to keep the friendship – such as it is – as it is. Horace can be the bus driver. She can be the passenger. His is a face she can count on. The reason she's always on time for his bus is simply that she likes him. She's on time for other things because her mother – God Rest Her Feet – taught her to be on time. She likes to sit and talk with Horace. He is the one good thing about the bus ride home. Sometimes, he's the one good thing about her day.

Abi's not good at judging age. She does know that Horace has quite a lot of grey hair, and some amazing lines that spill out from his eyes and curve down his cheeks. She thought he'd be somebody's Grandpa, but he told her no, and he laughed. “I look that old, do I?” Apparently, he's never had kids. Seems a waste, Abi thinks. She always sits across from Horace on the seat near the door so they can talk – at least
until a really old person comes along or somebody with a baby or a white cane or what-have-you. What-have-you is a Horace phrase for sure.

“Last day of school today,” he says as she pulls aboard, knapsack heavy on her back. She meant to throw out most of the school junk before leaving, but the vice-principal stopped her, wanted to talk, and she would have missed the bus. He just had to tell her what a wonderful student she
could be
, and how much he looks forward to seeing her in the fall. “Only one more year,” he reminded her. He must suspect she'd like to quit.

“Guess I won't be seeing you for a while.” Horace pulls a bag of juice berries from his pocket and hands them to her. The familiar gift makes her feel almost old, and a lump that feels oddly of regret pushes its way into her throat. She wishes suddenly that it wasn't the last day of the school year, with the summer stretching ahead. For ten months she's been able to spend most of her days away from home, but now the days are going to be long, and they're going to be spent with a man who used to be her father, but is now a stranger.

The juice berries are stuck together from the warmth of Horace's body, but they taste good and Abi offers Horace one. He puts it in his mouth and pushes it into a cheek before speaking. “What have you got planned for the summer?”

Such a normal question; if he only knew.

Thought I'd fly down to Australia, or look for my mother along the Nile…or was that the Amazon…maybe do a bicycle trip down the coast…tell Pops he can take me to Disneyland now…

“I was thinking it's time to find a job.” Abi watches the road. Heading east, they've left the town of Ladner, and rising on the south are concrete buildings: the “Industrial Park” they call that area, with an ice rink at one end, and a few small coffee shops for the employees who work in all those ugly, square buildings.

On the driver's side, to the north, is the Fraser River, a tidal river and salty. At this time the tide is down, and with the windows open she can smell the briny odour and the mud – the smell that says
home
for her; an ocean smell, out of place this far inland.

“You're going to find a job?” Horace turns to look at her for a quick moment, then his eyes go back to the road. He's a good driver, Horace, careful – not like some. “I'll be seventeen later in the fall.

I should have had a job last year.” Sixteen is old enough for a few things: old enough to quit school; old enough to have a job; almost old enough to leave home. A job would be a start.

Horace has turned back to her, and he's been looking at her for so long he's making her nervous after all. But his hands begin to turn the wheel even before his eyes are back on the road. He does know every curve. Soon they'll pass the little convenience store, the cedar mill, the paint store.
Then it'll just be scrubby fields and the odd old house.

“Hmm,” is all Horace says. Then: “You do have that look.”

“What's that?”

“That look of wanting to be somewhere else.”

She turns away, toward the river.
I didn't think anyone could see that.

“It's okay,” he goes on. “Now, speaking for myself, I take long journeys by train. That's how I travel.”

“You don't travel!” Horace hasn't gone anywhere on holiday as long as she's known him.

He grins. More lines spread over his face. “All the time!” He laughs. “I have my own train – tunnels, bridges, stations to stop at, forests to go through, hills to climb. It's in my yard, front and back. My neighbour figures that's why I don't have a wife. Maybe you've seen it? Just up from the corner of Trunk and Fifth?” A thought comes to him: a way to hold out his hand.
Here – take it.

“You should come and see!” he says, and he strikes the steering wheel in excitement. “Yes! Do that. Do come and see my train!” He pulls into a stop with something of a flourish, and the door swings open. “A
LL ABOARD
!” he calls out, exactly as a train conductor would.

“You bring back memories, you dear man,” says a quavery voice, and a shrunken woman appears from the step well.

“Next, you'll be punching my ticket!”

Abi hears his laugh as Horace rises from his seat to help her, and Abi stands and makes her way through the crowd to the back so the old woman can take her seat.

“Abi?”

She can hear Horace behind her, but she doesn't answer. He has to stretch to see to the back of the bus in his rear-view mirror, and he can see her slight form as she wraps her arm around the pole near the back door. Always so on-her-own. Oh, maybe he shouldn't have said what he did. These days, it's so tough just to be friendly to someone.

In the meantime, Abi's thinking, Now, why did he have to go and do that? They're just bus friends, nothing more. But he's going to ruin it. She doesn't want to know where he lives, but even more than that, she doesn't want him to know where she lives. She's managed to hold that secret for this long. Besides, she's never met an adult with a toy train. Every adult has some weirdness – her dad has his messages, her mum had her tomato plants…but a toy train?