The Gift by Peter Dickinson Read Free Book Online

jacket over his arm. Davy drove the pictures out, sat up, and looked forward. Dad was there, in the real world, striding away just like that. In the picture he was twice riddled with bullets and fell screaming into the gutter, but in the real world he walked on unharmed. When he was getting small in the distance, the blue car accelerated past the bus and the pictures faded.
    Davy watched the car slow beside Dad, and saw him halt. The conversation only took a few seconds before Dad raised his arm as if he were acknowledging some remark. The car moved on. Dad stood at the curb gazing after it, then turned and walked slowly back toward the trailers. The bounce had gone out of his step. He never noticed Davy.
    Next week was September’s finest. Davy wheeled his bike out of the garage and stood waiting for Penny, breathing deeply at the prickling sweet morning air.
    â€œYou’ll be taking cold baths before breakfast soon,” said Penny.
    â€œIt’s almost as good as Wales,” he said. “It’s as though it hadn’t realized it was all town here now, and was still trying to be country.”
    Penny freewheeled out into the road without answering. He had to pedal hard to catch her.
    â€œWhat’s up?” he said.
    â€œDidn’t you notice? Dad? Last night?”
    â€œNothing special.”
    â€œMr. Observant!”
    â€œWell, what?”
    â€œOh, he’s done something. Or he’s going to do something. He was all bounce and laughs. You must have noticed. Just like last time he got the sack.”
    â€œOh, Lord, I hope not.”
    â€œSo do I. Hi, Charlotte!”
    Davy fell back so that Penny could bike beside her fat friend and talk about diets, pop, and the amorous scandals of the Upper Fifth. The delicate, delicious air seemed stale now. He told himself that the blue car might only have stopped to ask Dad the way somewhere. But in that case, why had Dad turned back to the office, and with so depressed a walk?
    â€œWe’ll be at The Painted Lady,” said Mum.
    â€œNo, we won’t,” said Dad. “I’ve gone off it. We’ll be at The White Admiral.”
    The White Admiral was their usual Saturday pub, but this was Wednesday night and Mum had become sufficiently irritated by Dad’s ceaseless jauntiness to insist that he should take her out somewhere. Now she stood in the hall and pouted down at her new white drill trouser suit with the bell-bottomed legs.
    â€œI’m not going to The White Admiral in this,” she grumbled. “I’ll have to change again. Tommy Middle-ditch will go on and on. You know how he is.”
    Dad laughed and did a few steps of hornpipe in the tiny hall. They argued around and eventually settled to drive several miles to a village where there was a proper old pub, not named after a butterfly at all. Dad was pleased with the idea, as it meant a longer trip in his smart car.
    â€œYou’ll be all right, darlings?” said Mum.
    â€œI’m going to watch Carry on Spying ” said Penny.
    â€œYou’ve seen it before,” said Dad.
    â€œOnly eight times,” said Penny. “It’s that sort of film.”
    â€œPoor old Dave,” said Dad.
    â€œIt’s all right,” said Davy. “I’ve got a lot of chemistry homework. I’ll do it upstairs.”
    Davy liked to do homework on the floor, lying on his belly and writing with the paper only two inches from his nose. He wasn’t shortsighted, but it made a change from school. Even so it was wearisome work. He was about halfway through when the page blurred in front of his face and became a fawny yellow blank onto which a black squiggle darted, twirling with furious menace. Then another. Then another.
    He shook his head, concentrated on the isotopes of carbon and managed to force the idiot mess out of his mind. Even so he could still sense the pressure of it, like a shoulder against a door. Then the pressure relaxed and