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enough purchase so that I could reach up around the torso of the tree with my
left hand, like so. . . yes,
there was the stub of a torn-off branch; the Handle. I hoped it would bear my
weight. I grabbed onto it,
stretched my other hand up and got hold of a good solid branch that forked out
from the tree s crotch. I
wrapped both my arms around it.
What did I used to do next? I stayed there for a while, catching my breath and
trying to remember. Oh,
yes. Oh, shit. Was I still that flexible? I looked down again at the drop to
the ground. I d better be.
It took five tries, but I finally managed to lever my right leg up over the
branch I was holding on to. By
then my arms were trembling like coconut jelly and my fingers were beginning
to let go.
But I knew that my legs wouldn t let me down.  Thunder Thighs, Mumma used to
call Chastity proudly.
I hooked one leg around the branch and flexed. I shifted a little. I squeezed
harder, used my arms to twist
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my body. The motion pulled me up into the crook of the tree. I heard the inner
seam of my clam-diggers
giving away from the stress and the friction, but I d done it! I had gotten
back up in my almond tree, after
all these years!
Not as skillfully as I d imagined. I was lying in the crook of the tree,
curled around its trunk. My inner
thigh muscles were burning, and I d probably skinned a few of my fingertips.
And I was too exhausted to
move. A nasty big greenwhip snake could come down out of the tree after me
right now and I wouldn t
budge, not a rass.
But thinking about a greenwhip slipping through the branches towards me, I
found that I could move after
all. In fact, I was already sitting up and somehow edging my bottom over to
that branch over there that
looked sturdy enough for me. Careful, girl, careful.
And there I was, wedged into a V of branches like the one that used to be my
childhood seat. It didn t fit
my fifty-three-year-old behind very well, but jammed in like that, at least I
wasn t going to fall. My
problem would be getting unstuck.
Chuh. Worry about that later. I braced my feet on another branch, leaned
against the trunk of the tree
and got as comfortable as I could. Now for my book. A lazy morning reading a
trashy mystery.
I d put my book down to have my hands free to climb. There it was, lying at
the foot of the tree, at the
wrong end of gravity.  Fuck! I screamed, scaring a kiskedee bird out of a sea
grape bush.
A movement out on the beach far below me caught my eye. A man, strolling. He d
better be a resident.
There was a kind of tourist that didn t give two two s about private property.
I wrapped my arm around
a branch above me and tried to pull myself free. If that was an intruder, I
was going to give him a good
West Indian style cussing; burn his ears right off for him and send him on his
way.
I pulled on the branch. My ass stayed wedged. I pulled again. Nothing. I
pushed down on the arms of
the branches entrapping my behind. That worked, though it tore the seams of my
clam-diggers open a
little more. But I was on a mission now. Full of the fire of righteousness, I
swung myself down towards
the trunk. It would have worked, too, except that my already exhausted hands
wouldn t hold me. My
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fingers opened and I crashed to the ground, flat on my back.
 Oww! Damn it all to hell, man! My body was thrumming like a quattro string.
For a few seconds, I just
lay where I was, taking stock. Head felt okay, though rattled. Back holding
up. Elbow ouch. My elbow
had banged a rockstone when I landed. Hurt like blazes, but didn t seem
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broken. Legs? Yes, I could
move them. Toes too.
Slowly, I rolled to one side, then up onto my knees. The arthritic one yelled
at me.
I was shaking. The muscles in my arms could scarcely bear my weight. But I
made it to my feet, started
brushing the dirt off my behind.
What was lumpy in my pocket? I put my hand in, and came away with the bread
and butter I d brought
for my breakfast, squashed to a third of its former width. It was oozing
butter onto my hands. I threw the
wretched thing into the sea grape bush and wiped my hand on the almond tree
bark.
Oh, that man on the beach was really going to get it now!
I grabbed up my book and stomped down the path on shaky legs, working up a
good head of steam.
People wandering all over other people s homes, looking for  local colour,
always going where they
weren t supposed to go.
By some miracle I made it to the shore without tripping. I approached the man.
It was Hector. I couldn t tell for certain at first. He had his back to me.
Sure looked like his kind of outfit;
bright green wetsuit with purple inserts. I wasn t sure about his colour
sense, but I couldn t hate a suit
that showed off his assets like that.
He turned and caught me staring at his butt. Oops.  Oh, hi, Hector, I said
with a silly little wave.
He smiled as though someone had just brought him a surprise present.
 Calamity!
I hadn t had a chance before to look at him good. He was a nice-looking
man the kind of solid,
easy-to-smile face you could imagine waking up to see every morning.  I just
wanted to find out. . . Well,
these are people s homes on Dolorosse. You know that, right? Oh, damn. I was
babbling.
 Well, I  [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]