Finders Keepers by Belinda Bauer Read Free Book Online Page B

imagined he was swimming the breaststroke – sweeping great handfuls of blurry bad stuff behind him so he could reach the shores of a much better life. He’d had lots of practice and he was pretty good at it by now. His life
was
better, and
he
’d made it that way. When Steven thought about that, a little flame of happiness warmed his core and lit the way for him.
    But it still didn’t mean he could bring himself to deliver the
Bugle
to the home of a killer.
    Steven watched the cottages approach. Rose and Honeysuckle cottages – their names on their respective wooden gates – almost hidden behind the high hedgerows that bordered the lane. It was only their top windows and roofs that were really visible from the road, but as he passed their gates he could look in and see that the little front garden of Rose Cottage, which had once been so well tended, was struggling to survive the weeds. Mrs Holly used to do the garden, even though she was sick. The summer before she’d died, Steven had arrived with the paper just in time to help her barrow a pile of greenery through to the compost heap at the back of the house. She knew all the plant names, and he’d told her about the vegetable patch he’d grown with Uncle Jude. His carrots and beans – and how even Davey would eat salad, now that it was made up of their own lettuce and tomatoes and little new potatoes which tasted more like nutty cream than like plain old spuds.
    Mr Holly never came out any more. If he did, Steven hadn’t seen him, and for that he was grateful. It meant he didn’t have to think about him too much. Delivering the
Bugle
to Mrs Paddon once a week was as close as Steven ever wanted to get to Mr Holly again.
    His glimpse of the gardens was over and he walked on, head down, until he figured he was at a safe enough distance to drop his deck once more and push himself up the hill.
    Old Barn Farm was just about a hundred yards past the entrance to Springer Farm – or what was left of it. Steven’s mother had forbidden him and Davey to go there since it burned down. She said walls would fall on them, rafters might plummet at any second, charred floorboards could give way under their feet. Steven had never been to Springer Farm anyway, but suspected that Davey often went to play there, now that his mother had made it seem like such an exciting place to be.
    Old Barn Farm had new gates to go with the new residents. Big black iron ones that wouldn’t open when Steven pushed them. He stood for a moment, undecided. The gates were so new that the mortar used in their brick posts was still dusted across nearby brambles. He wondered how far down the driveway the farmhouse was – whether it was going to be worth his while getting this order if he had to mess with the gates and then walk a mile after that every week. Or every day, if he could get them to take the
Western Morning News
from him.
    ‘Hello.’
    Steven looked around at the voice and noticed a shiny steel intercom built into the gatepost. An intercom! In Shipcott! There was a button marked ‘Talk’, so he pressed it, feeling like 007.
    ‘Hello. Umm. I want to know … I wanted to know if maybe you want a newspaper delivered.’ He released the button and then fumbled it back down and added ‘please’ – then pressed it again and said ‘thank you’.
    Double-O Dickhead.
    There was a short silence, and then a spurt of laughter.
    ‘I’m
here
, dopey!’
    Emily Carver was on the grass verge behind him on a horse.
    It took only a split second of mental panic for Steven to realize that nothing he could say right now would save him from looking like a complete idiot, so instead he just waved his arms in a gesture of vague resignation, and hoped his face wasn’t as red as it felt.
    She wasn’t wearing the green ribbon. Her brown hair was plaited over one shoulder and held in place by a plain black band.
    ‘I’m in your class,’ said Emily, as her horse – a smallish, golden-coloured animal –