The Flour Shed
2007; Springer International Publishing; Volume: 33; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0311-4198
Autores Tópico(s)Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations
Resumo'I'll be the doctor!' called David, as the three children ran towards the flour shed at the end of the driveway, the medical set in its white box bouncing against his thigh. Before Nell could say anything, Elizabeth cried, 'I'll be the nurse!' Aww ... I was the patient last time,' Nell groaned. David and Elizabeth were from the saddlery next door to the bakery where she lived and on weekends she often played with them, but they were both older than she was and bossy too. Nell pulled up the roller door and they went inside. 'Take your clothes off, please,' David told her. Because he was the only boy, David was always the doctor. It wasn't fair. Nell would have liked to examine him some time. She pulled off her dress, slipped her undies down, and lay naked on a blanket on the floor. Elizabeth found the plastic magnifying glass in the medical kit and gave it to David. Nell turned her head to look at the flour bags piled up in the corner as he began to check over her body. She never knew where to look when they played this game. David checked her arms, neck, each of her nipples, and her belly button. Nell held her breath. 'Just move your legs apart, please,' said David the doctor. She breathed in and shifted her legs, just a little. The old blanket felt rough on her bottom. She held herself stiff as he leaned down, his eye enormous in the magnifying glass. David found a red mark just inside her right thigh. It was probably just an old mosquito bite, Nell thought. She watched as Elizabeth searched through the kit for a bandage and then handed it to David. 'Just lift up so I can put the bandage around,' he told her. Nell raised her leg off the ground and David began to cover her upper thigh with the gauzy cloth. Nell felt the breeze coming under the roller door and shivered, excited but a little scared too. She concentrated hard on the flour bags, wishing she'd kept her undies on. Just as he was tucking away the last of the bandage, the door of the shed was wrenched open and Nell's Dutch mother stormed in. 'Potverdamme' What are you doing! Get up! I told you not to play that game! Put your clothes on Nell!' Her mother waved her hand at the other two. 'Weg! Away! Go back to your father's shop and stay there!' David and Elizabeth ran off, heads down. Nell's face burned as she put her undies and dress back on. 'It's just a game,' she said. But her mother was already charging off to the bakery to tell her father what they'd been doing in his flour shed. Two weeks later, Nell wandered into the saddlery, squinting as she adjusted to the brown-leather gloom of the place. 'How are you, little Nell?' said the old man who sat on a stool at a bench covered with saddles, belts and old shoes ready for repair. 'Good thanks, Mr Morton,' she said, smiling at David and Elizabeth's grandfather. 'But I'm not little anymore. I'm nearly nine!' He tousled her hair and laughed. Mr Morton had started the shop over fifty years ago. Now his son, David and Elizabeth's father, did most of the saddlery work but he still came in and did odd jobs and was always sitting on the same stool, drinking tea out of a tin mug. The mug was black inside from years of tea stains. Nell thought that neither the tin mug nor the saddlery had been cleaned out since Mr Morton had first opened the shop all those years ago. Not like the cake shop. Her mother or one of the shop girls was always wiping benches, cleaning the front window, or sweeping the floor. It had to be clean. And Nell wasn't allowed to stay in the bakery too long. They were too busy. But the saddlery was slow and dark and filled with the warm smell of leather. 'David's around here somewhere if you're looking for someone to play with.' Nell found David under one of the leatherwork tables near the back of the shop, sucking on a tube of condensed milk. …
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