Secret Heart by David Almond Read Free Book Online Page A

his lips. If he grew, if he toughened up, would all this shifting stop?
    She turned her key in the lock.
    She called upstairs.
    “Joe! You're in?”
    “Yes, Mum!”
    She came up to him, sat on his bed, her eyes reflecting the pale orange light.
    “How's my boy?”
    “F-fine.”
    “You had a walk?”
    “Yes. Not too far.”
    She stroked his brow.
    “When you've grown up,” she said, “we will go far. We'll get out of Helmouth. We'll move, just like those people in the circus move. We'll find a lovely life, Joe, you and me.”
    He heard her gently beating heart, her gentle breath.
    “L-love you,” he breathed.
    “Yes,” she said. “Love you.”
    And started to sing, sending him to sleep.
    “If I were a little bird, high up in the sky,
    This is how I'd flap my wings and fly, fly, fly.
    If I were a cat, I'd sit by the fireplace,
    This is how I'd use my paws to wash my face.
    If I were a rabbit small, in the woods I'd roam,
    This is how I'd dig my burrow for my home.
    If I were …
    “Good night,” she whispered. “Good night, little one.”
    She went downstairs. Soon she came up again to her own bed, her own sleep.
    Joe slept. The night deepened. The tiger began to move again, out of the wasteland toward Joe Maloney.
    Joe smelt it, the hot, sour breath, the stench of its pelt. He felt the animal wildness on his tongue, in his nostrils. He heard the beast padding up the stairs. He heard the long slow breath, the distant sighing in its lungs, the rattle in its throat. It came into his room, it stood over his bed.
    “Tiger,” he gasped. “Tiger. Tiger.”
    He prepared to die as the great striped face came closer, as the great curved fangs opened, as the cruel cold eyes stared into him. And then he changed. He felt fur beginning to break through his skin. He felt heavy paws and lethal claws. He felt his breathing deepen. He felt a tiger heart drumming in his chest. He rolled on his bed. Through his head rushed memories of running through hot forest, deer leaping before him.
    “Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!”
    It came from the night.
    “Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!”
    And the tiger took its wildness and its scent away, and Joe became simply Joe again and he went to the window and made a funnel of his hands and peeredout and saw the orange stripes beneath the orange lights and the black stripes against the black night as the tiger loped toward the huge dark figure waiting there in the Cut.
    “Tiger!” Joe whispered, and the tiger turned, and looked at the boy in recognition. Then was gone, disappearing with the man beyond the Cut.
    Joe Maloney stroked his hands, licked his teeth, listened to his heart.
    To the east, beyond the village, above the Black Bone Crags, a thin line of orange striped the black sky. Joe Maloney dressed himself, tiptoed from the house, followed the tiger, and the scent of tiger was on him, and the memory of tiger was running through his blood.



One
    Easy breath, easy heart. The scent of sawdust, canvas, animal skin and animal dung. Soft earth beneath him. Gentle noises: creaking and flapping of canvas. He lay there. Something moved across his face. Something soft, delicate, that stroked his skin.
    “Joe. Joe. Joe Maloney.”
    He opened his eyes.
    Corinna knelt at his side with a thin paint-brush in her hand. Beyond her was the net, the trapeze, the faded galaxy. Over everything, the blue blue light.
    “I knew you were here, Joe,” she whispered. “I dreamed that you were here. I knew you'd come. And here you were, fast asleep.”
    She showed him the paintbrush, her little case of paints.
    “Turning you into a tiger,” she said. “A disguise. Hold still. Nearly done.”
    He lifted his fingers to his face but she stopped him.
    “You'll smudge it, Joe.”
    “A tiger came for me,” he said.
    She smiled.
    “A tiger?”
    She continued to paint him, orange, black and white. Then passed a glass of warm milk to him. He sat up and sipped and licked his lips.
    “Straight from one of our goats,” she