Page 56 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. IV #1

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“They are, Granddad.” “I’m going to climb down,” he said, negotiating
(Continued from page 36)
the rope ladder.
Granddad wrote to me twice a week, some-
times three but I didn’t get to see him as much Granddad sat beside me on the mud floor. After as I wanted. Granddad didn’t last very long in getting himself comfortable he asked, “So what Dingle and he died there a few months later, are we doing, Lizzie? I’m only asking, so that I soon after my ninth birthday. I thought I killed can be ready... for whatever it is we are doing.” my Granddad by making mother cross, but he
came back and said it wasn’t so, he told me he
loved his Busy Lizzie.
When I was ten, I found one of the truths
Dad had been digging for. I kept it for myself though, because I had found it. To be honest I didn’t find it on my own, Granddad helped me. I was sitting at the bottom of Dad’s newest bur- row. It was ten o’clock at night and I was sup- posed to be in bed. It was November and there was a big fat greedy moon hanging over the top of the burrow, watching everything. The earth smelled like an animal’s wet fur.
“That aye,” Granddad said. “And why would you need to get used to being in the ground, faith?”
Granddad’s head appeared at the top of the burrow and with the moon behind him, he looked as though he had a halo.
“And what is the very bad news altogether?” Granddad asked, sounding a bit alarmed, and a bit laughy I thought.
“Hello Lizzie.”
“Hello back,” I called up to him.
“And there’s no chance of a cure, d’you think?”
“I’m getting myself used to being in the ground, Granddad.”
“For when I’m dead, Granddad.”
“And are you planning on dying soon, Lizzie child?”
“I have very bad news, Granddad, very bad news altogether.”
“I’m dying, Granddad, I don’t know how long I’ve got, but it’s not very long.”
“None,” I said. “After you died, Mother told me that I had a hole in my heart the size of a crab- apple. She said that the way to know if the hole hadn’t closed was if I started bleeding. Bleed- ing is a very bad sign, she said. That means