Kit's Wilderness by David Almond Read Free Book Online

anything. You don’t hear anything.”
    “Nothing.”
    “You don’t remember anything.”
    “Nothing. Nothing to remember.”
    “And you’re not scared till you come back.”
    “Scared to find out that you’ve been away at all. Scared to think you’ll be going away again. But when you’re there . . . nothing.”
    He shrugged and smiled again.
    “And coming back’s like being found again. Like the men coming through the tunnels with their lamps and calling out to you.”
    He shook his head again.
    “Old man’s troubles. They’re not for lads like you, however much you think you understand,” he said. “But I want to find a way to help you see what’s happening. If I can help you, be less scary for you, eh?”
    “Yes,” I whispered.
    He reached across and gently stroked my tears away with his fingertips.
    “No need for that,” he whispered. “I’ve done my time, as you’ll do yours.”
    And he winked at me.
    “That mate of yours,” he said. “That lass. She’s the one. One that’s filled with light and life. Keep near to her, boy.”

 

    I hardly slept that night. Children giggled and whispered all around me. I stared out and saw dark clouds hanging low over Stoneygate. Hardly a light to be seen. Grandpa groaned behind the wall. I tried to pray for him but the words were dead and empty on my tongue. Next morning he wouldn’t wake. It seemed as if he’d never wake. Mum sat by his bed with a mug of tea cooling in her hands.
    “Dad,” she whispered. “Come on, Dad.” I said I’d stay with her but she snapped at me. “Go to school. Do your duty. Get to school.”
    I ran through drizzle to the gates. The clouds stayed all day. Rain flooded down the windows during lessons. All day I thought of him lying there in darkness, in nothingness.
    In geography, Dobbs yelled at Allie for taking no notice of him.
    “You may think tectonic plates have nothing to do with you, Miss Keenan!” he yelled. “But that’s just because the plates in your own skull have yet to join up with each other. You’re an infant world, girl. You’re semiformed. You’re a tectonic gap.”
    I saw the tears in her eyes, her clenched fists, saw how she’d like to rip him limb from limb.
    We sat together in the corridor at break and listened to the rain hammering on the roof. I wanted to find a way of telling her about my grandpa, but she was filled with spite. All she did was stamp the floor, squeeze her eyes, spit her breath out.
    “Hate this place,” she hissed. “Hate it and everybody in it. Maybe I won’t even wait till they let me go. I’ll take myself off early. Runaway, vagabond, make my own life.” She pinched my arm. “You could come with me, Kit. Take a bag and set off wandering. Me and you together.”
    “Eh?” I said.
    She laughed, her mouth twisted.
    “Eh? Eh? You? Course you wouldn’t. And even if you did you’d drive me wild. Eh? Eh? Eh?”
    I bared my teeth at her. “You,” I said. “Dobbs is right. All you think about is you, you, bloody you.”
    And she stamped off down the corridor.
    Then the bell went and I headed down to French. I passed Askew being yelled at by Chambers, the deputy head. Askew was a lout, he said, an imbecile, a disgrace to the school. Askew lounged against the wall with his head down, just taking it all. He lifted his eyes and sneered at me as I passed.
    “Mr. Resurrection, eh?” he muttered.
    “What was that?” said Chambers. “What was that you said to me?”
    “Nowt,” said Askew, and I heard the deep tedium in his voice. “Nowt. Just nowt.”
    Then French, and math, and sandwiches that tasted like cardboard in my mouth, and snappy teachers and miserable kids and the rain pouring, pouring down. Everything inside and outside just a blur. Just wanting to get back out and get back home again and see how Grandpa was. Kept gripping the ammonite in my fist. How long had it been down there, in the earth, till it was found again? How long did anything have to