Long Way Home. Michael Morpurgo

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СКАЧАТЬ and wiping the saliva off on the grass.

      ‘I didn’t know they were so friendly,’ said George, now safely out of reach of the grey tongue that was still curling out like a tentacle in search of something or someone to suck.

      ‘They’re not,’ said Tom. ‘This one’s odd – doesn’t like cows at all, just people.’ They looked at each other as they spoke and then back at Jemima. Jemima pulled her tongue in and looked up at them with her great gentle eyes. ‘Do I look like your mother?’ Tom asked Jemima. ‘Is that it?’ They were all laughing now. Jemima blinked dreamily up at him, stretched her neck upwards and out came the tongue again, but Tom sidestepped her and climbed the gate. They left her forlorn and disappointed, her white head thrust through the gate.

      By the time they reached the house, Mrs Thomas had gone. George half-expected it anyway – it was a favourite trick of hers that he knew well by now. She would leave without really saying goodbye, but this time it didn’t seem to matter to him that much.

      After lunch Storme took him up the dark, narrow staircase to his room at the top of the house, and during the afternoon he helped to unload hay-bales from the trailer and stack them in the Dutch barn with Tom, Storme and Mr Dyer. Storme didn’t do much – she just talked. The sun shimmered hot behind a layer of cloud, and as the afternoon went on the air became heavy and the work more exhausting. Storme gave up her chatter and went inside; the hay was tickling her and she couldn’t stop coughing and spluttering in the dust thrown up by the bales as they hit the ground.

      George worked on, the sweat trickling down into the corners of his eyes. Every time he picked up a bale he winced as the string bit into his fingers. But he was happy listening to Tom and his father chatting. They didn’t talk to him much. What he dreaded was when people forced themselves to talk to him – he could always tell. Once or twice he caught Tom looking at him strangely, but then he was doing the same to Tom – sizing him up.

      The clouds built up above them as they worked and in the distance there was the rumble of thunder. Shortly after, the rain started, falling in huge drops, slowly at first. Mr Dyer drove the tractor and trailer under cover of the half-filled Dutch barn and they ran back to the house, closing their eyes against the rain that pounded down on them, plastering their hair down flat on to their heads. They burst in laughing through the kitchen door, the water pouring from their noses, their shirts clinging to their backs.

      ‘Not before time,’ said Tom’s father, shaking his arms. ‘We could do with it. First rain for over a month. Things never happen by halves, do they?’

      ‘We got most of it done, anyway,’ said Tom, and he grabbed some drying-up cloths from the rail by the stove. Mrs Dyer rescued them and handed out warm towels instead.

      ‘We should finish stacking next week,’ Tom’s father said, emerging from the folds of the towel that covered his head. ‘Got it done twice as fast with George here. I don’t suppose you’ve got much skin left on your fingers, eh? They’ll harden up, don’t you worry.’ George looked down at his raw hands. He’d forgotten they were hurting. He pulled his shirt off like the others and dropped it over the back of a chair. Then he set to work rubbing his hair dry. The kitchen smelt a bit like a launderette. George screwed up his eyes and rubbed the warmth back into his head.

      ‘And I suppose you’ll want paying as well,’ Tom’s father mumbled from underneath his towel.

      George stopped rubbing and lowered his towel. ‘Paying?’ he said. He looked from Tom to his father, but they were both hidden by their towels. He was confused. It had been a wonderful afternoon; he had felt at ease with everyone. There had been no special treatment. He had begun to feel that he belonged there working with them. And now, suddenly, Mr Dyer was offering to pay him money – just to him, not to Storme or Tom, just to him. He was to be paid for the work like all the other foster children who came there every summer. ‘I don’t want to be paid,’ he said quietly, and he turned away from them and walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the privacy of his room.

      He sat down on his bed under the window and threw his towel angrily into the corner. It was the same after all, just like all the other families, maybe even worse; no one had ever treated him like a hired worker before, and at least you knew where you were with them. He got up and retrieved the towel. He was not going to stay on those terms, not for Mrs Thomas, not for anyone. He took out his dry clothes and pushed his wet trousers and shirt down to the bottom of his case. He would leave during the night; it was easier that way – no arguments, no explanations. He’d done it before. They could find another foster boy to work for them. This time tomorrow, he’d be back in the Home, and maybe Mrs Thomas would listen to him from now on.

      There was a knock on his door. ‘You in there, George?’ It was Storme. George pushed his suitcase under the bed. The latch clicked up. ‘You still look wet,’ she said. ‘Mum said to come down – tea’s ready.’ George nodded and stood up. Storme ventured further into the room. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you like it here? You liked it out in the barn this afternoon – I was watching you. I bet it was Tom. Did he say something? Don’t take any notice of him – he’s like that. You mustn’t take any notice – I don’t.’

      ‘I’m all right,’ said George.

      ‘Dad said he thought you were cross about something,’ she went on.

      ‘Well, I’m not!’ George spoke abruptly and Storme was surprised at the harshness in his voice. She led the way downstairs but said nothing more.

      All through tea George felt Storme’s eyes on him while the others talked among themselves. Occasionally he looked up at her to try to find out what she was thinking, but each time she looked away quickly. It was almost as if she knew what he was planning to do that night. Mr Dyer didn’t mention the money again and Tom spoke only once to him to ask him for the tomato ketchup for his fish fingers.

      ‘Been pouring now for some time,’ said Mr Dyer, turning round to look out of the window. ‘If it goes on like this, we’ll have a river down the bottom of the water-meadow instead of a trickle.’

      ‘We’ll have the fish back,’ said Mrs Dyer. ‘You ever been fishing, George?’ George shook his head and chased a pea across his plate until he trapped it up against his last fish finger. ‘We get brown trout and rainbow trout, all sorts down there,’ she said.

      The thunder crashed right above them, rattling the windows and bringing the conversation to a halt. The lights flickered nervously. They stopped eating and listened to the rain hammering down on the corrugated roof of the shed outside. It sounded like hailstones.

      ‘The calves won’t like this much,’ said Tom, going back to his food and dipping some bread in his tomato sauce. ‘And that mad Jemima – she’ll do her nut.’

      ‘Bound to be lightning. You can feel it in the air,’ said Mr Dyer, standing up. ‘I’m off to shut up the chickens.’

      He was right. There was lightning later that night. Lying on his bed, George watched the sky outside flash white. He knelt up and pressed his face against the teeming window pane above the bed and waited for the next flash. When it came, the countryside turned from black to a lead grey and then back to a deeper black. He watched for some time, wiping the window with his sleeve whenever it became steamed up. Then he climbed into his bed, still fully dressed, and waited. Mrs Dyer called goodnight up the stairs, and Storme came up in her green dressing-gown and matching slippers and said she’d see him in the morning. She waved at him from the door and was gone. He was alone.

      He planned to wait until the storm had passed its peak and everyone was asleep. СКАЧАТЬ