I Am David by Anne Holm Read Free Book Online

loudly with frequent bursts of laughter. In that way he learnt what many things were used for, things that were strange to him but seemed to be taken for granted by the people round him.
    He had not yet heard anyone talk about them: sometimes the fact that there were obviously none of them in the town led him to be rather less careful. He always walked on if anyone looked at him, but he sometimes came very near to forgetting his fears, and he quite openly filled his bottle at the pump down by the seafront and accepted several loaves from the man who made them. At first he would stand for a long time hidden in the shadows outside the shop listening to the baker’s conversation with his customers — but it was never about them, and he never asked David any questions except whether he were hungry, and then he would give him a loaf and a friendly smile.
    And so it was almost out of habit that David now hid in the dark outside and listened. That evening the man was talking of someone called Guglio and the good catch he had had. For a moment David’s heart stood still with fear … Then he realized they were talking, not of people, but of fish caught at sea.
    He stood there a little longer, in his relief forgetting to listen. Then he suddenly heard the man say, “Who’s that boy that comes here every evening for a loaf? Do you know?”
    “What boy?”
    “A thin ragged boy, but always very clean. He looks a bit foreign.”
    David pressed himself flat against the wall and stood there as if glued to the spot. Another man was speaking now, one who spoke differently from the rest, more after David’s own fashion, “I’ve seen a strange boy every evening this week: he stands and looks at the church. I assumed he’d come over for the harvest. Signor Missiani takes on a number of casual workers about this time.”
    Then a woman said something. “No one’s come yet for the harvest, padre: Thérése would have told me. I’ve seen the boy, too. It must be the same one. He doesn’t look like the others and he always moves off when you look at him. He’s got very strange-looking eyes …”
    “In what way strange?” — that was the one they called “padre” speaking again: “padre” meant “priest” — “I’ve only seen him standing in the dark on the other side of the square … Does he look as if he’s up to mischief?”
    “No, no, I don’t know about that, padre, but he’s a strange boy. If you smile at him, he doesn’t smile back; he doesn’t run off, either; he just turns and walks away. And his eyes … they’re so quiet-looking. Perhaps we should get hold of him and ask him where he comes from.”
    David heard no more. With no more sound than a puff of wind he was down the street and inside the first open door — through a long dark passage and out again in another street. Never before had he found it so difficult to walk along calmly as if he felt no fear. He increased his speed, out of the town, out to the rocks — he must get away at once before they began looking for him.
    They might be sending for them already … David waited a long, long time, hiding by the side of the road, before he ventured scrambling down to his hiding-place. The last two evenings he had left his bundle there, and now he must take it with him. But first he had to make sure no one was following.
    When he reached the safety of the rocks, he lay down, but not to sleep, only because his legs felt as if they would not bear his weight any longer. As he lay there, he could see the lights from the town below. They looked beautiful in the dark. But he had been right when he sensed there was danger there: he must get away, that very night.
    The thought filled him with despair. He had begun to feel that it was his town, that the rock belonged to him. He knew every little irregularity in its surface, and every morning when he undid his bundle, he would arrange his things in the same way. The little stream higher up across the road had