Wrath by Anne Davies Read Free Book Online Page B

for some reason. No matter how different she was starting to look, she was still my old Katy. I’d jog up to the oval behind the school. There was always someone hanging around up there to muck around with.
    A few months later, I came home from school and plonked down on the edge of the veranda to pull my muddy shoes off. Mum was pretty fussy about that new carpet of hers, and she seemed to get angry easily lately. I knocked the worst of the mud onto the ground, rubbed the rest off with an old towel kept on a nail for that purpose, dropped the shoes into the shoebox and pulled my clean runners on. I was in no hurry to go inside because I could hear Mrs Brockman’s voice braying away inside. I leant back against the veranda post and closed my eyes. I felt pretty good. We had a new teacher who seemed to like me, and he was great.
    Today, he’d said, “Right, everyone, gather around and I’ll read you a story.”
    We’d groaned a bit—quietly, because we weren’t too sure what the teacher’s limits were yet—and Glen Jacobs had said, “We’re Grade Six, sir, not little kids.”
    â€œAnd this is no story for little kids. It’s got murder, blood, executions, witchcraft and war.” He had us now. “Get comfortable.”
    We’d dived onto a pile of old beanbags in the corner, he’d pulled a beanbag out in front of us and we’d all wriggled down, and then he’d opened a book.
    â€œThe story I’m going to read you happened a long while ago in Scotland. I’ll fill you in with bits of it and read other bits. The language is from those times, so it’s a bit different to that of today, but you can handle it; you’re bright kids.”
    We’d all felt the same, I think, when he said that: embarrassed but pleased, so pleased that we were having trouble keeping the grins off our faces. Old Mr Evans had only ever growled at us and told us how stupid we were.
    â€œWell,” the new teacher began, “there’d been a war, and three men were riding back across the cold, misty moors of Scotland. One was named Macbeth…” and he’d read on all afternoon, reading bits from the book and then explaining any puzzling words. It was cold outside that day, just like on that Scottish moor, and we’d sat there, leaning comfortably against one another, pulled into the spell those strange, magic words were weaving.
    Three o’clock arrived, but no one moved a muscle. The new teacher stopped and raised an eyebrow, and we’d all urged indignantly, “Go on, sir. Doesn’t matter about the time. You can’t stop there.”
    He’d laughed, clearly delighted with our response.
    â€œGreat place to leave it! What I want you to do tonight… Let’s see—whatever takes your fancy. Either draw a picture of the witches around the cauldron, making sure you include as many of the ingredients as you can remember, or if you’d rather write than draw, you can write about how you think this may end. I promise if you all do your homework, we’ll read some more tomorrow.”
    We’d rolled clumsily out of our cocoon of beanbags and run out the door, shouting, “Thanks, sir,” and, “See you tomorrow, sir!”
    â€œMake sure you do your homework, Bevan,” my friend Martin said to the slackest person in the class as we shoved through the door.
    â€œNo worries,” he’d said, “I love drawing. Fancy not having to write a whole lot of crap for homework.” And that was the best thing really: that a teacher had actually given us a choice, had actually realised that we too liked a bit of power in our lives.
    I was half-drowsing there, on the veranda, with the drone of the women’s voices lulling me almost to sleep, when suddenly I jerked wide-awake. I’d heard a man’s laughter in the kitchen, and it wasn’t Dad’s. I pushed open the wire door, and the