I Own the Racecourse! by Patricia Wrightson Read Free Book Online Page A

puzzled way. Andy sat on a rock shelf and chuckled in the dark. ‘That’s it,’ he said at last, peering at them. Reflected light from below washed faintly over their faces. He could see that they were still mystified. ‘It’s mine,’ he explained. ‘I bought it.’ He stood up suddenly and leaned forward in the night, clinging with his hands to the cliff-face. ‘ I own Beecham Park! ’ cried Andy triumphantly.
    The other boys were completely silent. Andy chuckled and gazed, and chuckled again. On the splendid stage below, the crowd drifted and swirled; the bookmakers shouted; the band marched and played.
    â€˜Three dollars and cheap at the price,’ said Andy. ‘I only got two in my box. I had to get another one.’ He was talking dreamily, half to himself. ‘It took a time. Mum doesn’t know I opened the money-box…Don’t you wish it was yours?’ He looked at the shocked faces of his friends. ‘You can come and look at it any time,’ he assured them. ‘It’s just the same as if it was yours.’
    Still they were silent, unable to realize that Andy had bought Beecham Park Trotting Course for himself. The tide of people flowed away, the bookmakers sputtered, the great voice spoke out.
    â€˜The horses!’ cried Andy, his eyes wide in the pale, reflected light. ‘They’re coming! Can’t you hear their feet, Joe?’
    The dark, shining horses whirled their jewelled drivers round under the floodlights. Andy watched them, his face alight with pride and love. This was his, this bright circle in the dark night. He had bought it for three dollars.
    Around him on the cliff, his friends stirred uneasily. Matt muttered, ‘Cripes!’ Terry was frowning. Mike and Joe exchanged a look, worried on Joe’s side and stern on Mike’s. It was clear that someone had ‘taken’ Andy for three dollars, and that he was going to be let down. That was all that the two younger boys saw—and, with Andy’s face dreaming in the dim light from below, that was enough. Mike and Joe were beginning to sense something more; some bigger problem, not so simple to grasp.
    Joe tried once. ‘Look, Andy, you know you couldn’t really buy Beecham Park for three dollars. It’d cost thousands and thousands.’
    â€˜The old chap sold it cheap,’ Andy explained. ‘A packet of trouble, that’s what he said. He wanted to sell it cheap.’
    Old chap! That was unexpected. Not some mean-hearted member of the high-school set, then; someone older, from whom Andy should have been safe. ‘Cunning old coot,’ muttered Terry, and spat.
    Andy turned to them, full of delight, the spikes of hair standing up on the back of his head. ‘Good, isn’t it?’ he breathed.
    â€˜I can’t stand this,’ muttered Mike. ‘Let’s get out of here. We need a bit of time.’
    â€˜Come on, boy,’ said Joe, putting a gentle hand on Andy’s shoulder. ‘Time we went home.’
    Andy followed them up the cliff. ‘I’ll show you tomorrow too,’ he promised. ‘It’s real quiet, and you can see the men sweeping her out.’
    They saw Andy to his own street and watched him loping home. Then, since Joe’s front yard was the nearest private place, they wandered that way.
    â€˜We never should have let him loose for a whole week,’ said Joe. Andy was a responsibility they accepted.
    A woman came to a dimly lit door and shrieked, ‘Fred! ’ At an upstairs window two men were shouting angrily. In the street a white-coated figure strolled among the cars.
    â€˜We can’t talk to his mother,’ Mike pointed out. ‘She doesn’t know he’s taken the money from his money-box.’ Since all their families and most of their friends had known each other for a long time and met very often, that seemed to dispose of all adult help. They filed