Boy in the Tower by Polly Ho-Yen Read Free Book Online Page A

this evening. We do not know what went on here tonight, but the police have cordoned off this entire area, as you can see behind me. Their deaths are being treated as suspicious.’
    Two large photos of the men filled the screen. They were both smiling. One of them had laughter lines round his eyes and rosy red cheeks. The other looked younger and had pale skin and light yellow hair.
    I recognized them straight away.
    They were the men in the yellow hard hats Gaia and I had walked past earlier that day.

Chapter Sixteen
    The news went on and on about the two men all night. Suddenly the danger was greater. These two men hadn’t been in a collapsed building; they’d died because of something else. Some people were saying that this might not have anything to do with what had happened with the buildings, that it could just be a coincidence that they’d died where a building had fallen. Until they’d done something called a post mortem, no one would know anything for sure.
    That didn’t stop them from talking about it, though.
    I didn’t put the lights on, so the room was lit up by the television. I stayed up late watching it even though there wasn’t anything they could really tell us; they just kept saying the same kind of things over and over.
    It was the same as with the buildings.
    No one could explain why it was happening.

Chapter Seventeen
    I went to find Gaia as soon as I got to school the next morning. She was sitting underneath the sunflowers. We had just a little time before they would blow the whistle to line up.
    She looked tired, like she hadn’t been to sleep much the night before.
    ‘Gaia, did you see the news?’ I said. ‘Did you see what happened to those two men we saw?’
    ‘Yes, I saw it,’ she said, but she didn’t say anything more.
    ‘Why do you think they died?’
    Gaia didn’t say anything.
    ‘Do you think . . . do you think that when we walked past again and didn’t see them, they were . . .’ My voice trailed off.
    Fat tears rolled down Gaia’s face. Her eyes looked large and glassy.
    ‘What’s wrong, Gaia?’ I said. ‘Are you upset about the men we saw? Don’t worry.’
    But whatever I said, she couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down her face. They ran all the way down her cheeks and down her chin, making wet lines on her face until she pulled down her sleeve and wiped them away.
    ‘It’s OK, Gaia, it’s OK.’
    The whistle went and Gaia sniffed and wiped her face with her sleeve again.
    ‘We shouldn’t have gone out last night,’ she said. ‘It could have been us.’ She slowly stood up and we walked into line.
    We filed into school and sat down at our desks but there was no work on our tables to do. Usually we start the day answering maths questions but the board was blank and our books weren’t out. Miss Farraway sat down on her chair and looked at us blankly, as if she couldn’t remember why she was here, or why we were there either, for that matter.
    ‘Miss Farraway,’ said Paul. ‘We haven’t got our maths books.’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said Miss Farraway. ‘Maths books.’
    ‘And there aren’t any questions on the board,’ Paul continued.
    ‘Well,’ said Miss Farraway, and it seemed like she was going to say something else after that, but she didn’t. And she didn’t make a move to get our books either.
    ‘Miss Farraway, are you all right?’ asked Olu, who’s the kind of person who always looks after people who fall over in the playground and takes them upstairs for a plaster or an ice pack.
    ‘Yes,’ said Miss Farraway, but her eyes filled with tears.
    ‘Miss Farraway!’ said Olu and jumped out of her chair to comfort her.
    ‘Thank you, Olu. I’m OK. Thank you. Sit down, lovely.’
    But then she really started sobbing. No one knew what to do or what to say. This never happened. Teachers don’t cry. Or if they do, they never do in front of us kids.
    Olu stood paralysed halfway between Miss Farraway and her chair. Some of the girls