Battle of the Sun by Jeanette Winterson Read Free Book Online

looking for one.’
    ‘That’s easy!’ said Crispis. ‘Whatever doesn’t exist is nearby.’
    Robert sighed and Peter cuffed the child on the head, but gently, and in play.
    ‘As it happens,’ said Robert, ‘yes, we do have a dragon.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Sometimes you can see it in the dry moat that lies lower than the house, as though the house rose out of the moat and will one day fall back there. It is all wrapped around the house.’
    The boys were crowding round now.
    ‘Tell me where the dry moat is!’ said Jack. ‘Can we see it from here? What if we climb up to the skylight and look down?’
    ‘It is forbidden to climb up to the skylight,’ said William.
    ‘Everything is forbidden!’ said Jack. ‘I don’t care. Come on! Who’s going to help me? I need help with the ladder!’
    ‘We’ll be punished!’ said Peter.
    ‘This is being punished!’ said Jack. ‘This is the worst punishment I ever had, worse than being locked in the cellar for stealing apples, worse than being beaten with a stick for breaking a window, worse than being made to row up and down the Thames all day because I stole a boat – I didn’t steal it really, I just borrowed it.’
    ‘I’m too frightened,’ said Roderick.
    ‘That’s because you’ve all been here a long time. He’s broken your spirit. You have to fight back – we can beat him.’
    ‘You’ll kill us all!’ shouted William, and he rushed at Jack, but the other boys pulled him off.
    ‘Peter! Anselm! Hold William,’ said Robert. ‘All right, Jack, we’ll help you. Roderick, get the ladder with me!’
    Reluctantly Roderick helped Robert to steady the ladder for Jack and soon Jack had shinned up and was high as the skylight.
    ‘Robert,’ he called down, ‘if the house doesn’t really exist, then the Dragon can’t really be wrapped around it, so we’re safe aren’t we?’
    Jack pushed open the skylight and eased his body half out on the roof. He looked out. His heart lifted; there was St Paul’s cathedral spire on the skyline. He was not so far away from home.
    He looked down. There was the courtyard, and beyond the courtyard, yes, there was a moat, and the moat had no water in it. There was nothing in it at all; it was a deep dug ditch.
    ‘Get down!’ shouted William, struggling to break free, his face twisted with anger and upset. ‘Who do you think you are? You have no right! Get down!’
    Suddenly Robert heard a noise. ‘Jack! Someone’s coming!’
    Jack began to slide himself back through the skylight, and as he did so, he dislodged a piece of lead on the roof. There it went, bouncing and skimming down the steep pitch of the roof, off the edge, and down into the moat.
    And Jack saw something very strange. As the sharp heavy bit of lead hit the moat, the moat moved – that is it rippled, the way the skin of an animal ripples, and Jack suddenly realised that he had been looking for a moat with a dragon in it, but the Dragon and the moat were the same thing . . . the Dragon was the moat and the moat was the Dragon. Whatever was wrapped around the house was alive.
    But it was too late for all that now.
    The metal door of the laboratory shot open like someone had fired it out of a gun. Wedge and Mistress Split were roaring on the threshold.
    ‘Eat! Eat! Eat! Meat! Meat! Meat!’
    Then Wedge saw the ladder, and Jack at the top of it. He hopped straight over, kicked the ladder away, and Jack fell straight down with a crash.
    And as he fell his arm knocked the Eyebat’s jar from the shelf.
    There was a silence. A horrified silence. Jack lay on the floor, a bit dazed, seeing the faces above him, like in a dream.
    For about a minute nothing happened. Then, like the slowest genie from the narrowest jar, green and black vapour began to swirl upwards and out into the room, with the smell of rotten eggs. William and Robert were coughing. Crispis had hidden under the table.
    Up went the vapour, and as the noxious gas began to clear, there at the bottom