Eight Days of Luke by Diana Wynne Jones Read Free Book Online

he said. “Hang on to me while I get hold of it.” So David gripped Luke round the waist and Luke leaned as far out of the window as he could. Somehow, he managed to grab the creeper and hook it back on the nails it had been tied to, where it hung, still limp and brown and withered, it is true, but nothing like so obviously broken.
    Then they turned back into the room, and David, to his horror, found the match he had struck lying on the floor still burning. He rushed and stamped it out.
    â€œYou see,” said Luke, “you only have to kindle a flame to fetch me. Now, what’s the matter? In trouble again?”
    â€œI’ll say I am!” said David. He gave Luke the history of supper, and Luke laughed. He laughed about the marrows, the towel and the burned food. He lay comfortably on David’s bed, with his dirty shoes on Mrs. Thirsk’s white bedspread, and laughed even when David said passionately: “I’m sick of having to be grateful!”
    â€œQuite right,” he said, scratching at the burn on his face, which seemed to be healing nicely.
    â€œIt’s all very well to laugh,” said David. “You don’t have to stand them all going on at you.”
    â€œOh, I know what that feels like,” Luke said. “My family was just the same. But there’s no sense in being miserable about it. Did you enjoy supper, by the way?”
    â€œThe cheese was all right,” said David. “What Cousin Ronald left of it.”
    Luke chuckled. “I thought of burning the bread too,” he said, “but I didn’t want you to go hungry.”
    â€œTell me another,” said David.
    â€œSeriously,” said Luke, although David could see from his face he was joking again. “Mrs. Thirsk deserved it. What shall we do now?”
    â€œI suppose we could play Ludo,” David suggested, looking mournfully at the scanty shelf of amusements by his bed.
    â€œI don’t know how to play Ludo,” said Luke, “and I can see from your face that I shouldn’t like it if I learned. I’ve a better idea. Would you like to see some of my doodles?”
    â€œWhat are they?” David asked cautiously.
    â€œWhat I used to amuse myself with in prison,” said Luke. “Look at that corner, where it’s darker, and if you don’t like them you can always tell me to stop. I can go on for hours.”
    Dubiously, David looked at the corner of his room. A tiny bright thing appeared there, coasting gently along, like a spark off a bonfire. It was joined by another, and another, until there were twenty or thirty of them. They clustered gently together, moved softly apart, combined, climbed and spread, and were never still for a moment. It was rather like watching the sparks at the back of a chimney, except that these made real, brief pictures, lacy patterns, letters, numbers and stars.
    â€œNot boring you?” said Luke. David shook his head, almost too fascinated to wonder how Luke made the things. “Let’s have a change of color, though,” Luke said quietly.
    The bright things slowly turned green. The shapes they made now were stranger, spreading at the edges like ink on blotting paper. Outside, it was getting dark. Luke’s green doodles showed brighter and brighter. Then they went blue and clear, and made shapes like geometry, all angles.
    David had no idea how long he watched. He stared until his eyes ached and he could see shapes even with his eyelids down. Every so often, Luke would make a quiet suggestion and the style of the doodles would change again. “Blood drops,” he would say. “Now some wild shapes.” And the bright things in the corner altered. Luke had just made them purple when David fell asleep.

5
THE FIRE
    L uke must have climbed down the creeper while David was asleep. He was not there in the morning, anyway, and David felt very flat without him. The morning was made no livelier by