Obsidian Pebble by Rhys Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

tantalising promise that they were just around the corner. Oz was forever seeing gawping tourists ambling about, getting frozen noses on freezing February days and drenched in December downpours. But if you really pinned them down as to why they lingered, all you ever got was a faraway look in their eyes and a shake of the head and perhaps a mumbled, “…didn’t want to miss anything.”
    Oz started whistling as he crossed the road—not because he liked the tune particularly—it was just that turning into Magnus Street tended to make you do things like that. He strolled past number 21, which was a posh architect’s office, admiring the bright blue walls and gleaming silver nameplates as he went. He lingered a bit at number 11, which was a bed and breakfast called “Sleep Easy,” because it had a friendly dog that sometimes licked his fingers through the gate.
    He usually returned to the even side of the street just before number 3, but today he continued past it so that he could inspect their decorations. Wispy spider’s webs had been sprayed all over the front gate and on the path to the front door. Half a dozen pumpkins of various sizes sat, plump and orange, between some luridly coloured pottery toads on the porch. Above them, a joke bat with ridiculously long fangs dangled from the roof, while two large stuffed ravens stood guard on the steps over a slumped skeleton, its head resting on a gravestone with R.I.P. written shakily upon it. Oz smiled. The Fanshaw twins who lived at number 3 certainly knew how to put on a show.
    Oz crossed the street, pulled open the gate and was on the point of pushing it shut when he hesitated and walked back out to look at the gatepost. He knelt and pulled aside a wisteria branch that had grown to almost cover the post completely. Beneath was an old plaque, once shiny but now green and weathered. Oz ran his fingers over the faded sign and allowed himself a smile as he read—“Colonel Thompson’s Home for Destitute Children.” He wondered if any orphans had ever heard footsteps at midnight in the creaky old rooms.
    * * *
    After lunch, Oz went shopping with his mother for school shoes and jeans. He had tried desperately to explain that there was nothing at all wrong with his current shoes, but when his mother went to fetch them and put three fingers through the gap between the sole and the upper, he shut up. And anyway, he really did need some new jeans.
    He didn’t mind shopping, as long as it was for no longer than about an hour. After that, something started to happen to his brain. He found himself just saying “yes” to whatever the sales assistant suggested so as to get out of the shop as quickly as he could, and usually ended up hating whatever it was he’d bought as soon as he got home. How some people could actually enjoy the process, he had no idea.
    â€œJust like your father,” was all Mrs. Chambers ever said when Oz drifted into bored and miserable mode.
    As it was, they’d got jeans within twenty minutes and the shoes had taken only another half hour, so Oz was about at his limit by the time they got to the supermarket. Still, there he could at least mess about by riding the shopping trolley and browsing the latest DVDs. But it wasn’t their usual supermarket and, because it was near the middle of the town, the shop had decided to stop anyone from taking a trolley off the premises by installing special wheels that locked as soon as they crossed a magical yellow line painted on the floor. So, grumpy and laden with shopping bags, Oz trudged after his mother towards the multi-storey car park. All he wanted to do was go home and have some tea, but Mrs. Chambers wasn’t quite finished yet.
    â€œHang on just a sec, Oz,” she said as they passed another row of shops.
    Oz groaned. The grocery bags were cutting into his fingers like cheese wires.
    â€œWhat do you think of this one?” Mrs.