The Outcast by Sadie Jones Read Free Book Online

all knocked on the door, all those sweet faces, hands resting on their handlebars:Tom Greene and Ed Rawlins, Tamsin Carmichael, Joanna Napper, the Johnson boys and little Kit trailing behind.
    ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Aldridge, is Lewis there?’ ‘He’s in the garden. I’ll call him.’
    She would stand at the French doors in the drawing room

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    and call. Lewis would be in the garden reading or on the cracked tennis court hitting a ball against the wall and he’d call back,‘Coming!’
    Most days were good days and she found she could paint or read and live in her mind happily, but some days were bad and then it was the event of her day, the children coming round and her calling Lewis in from the garden. She would watch him cycle off with them, the bikes swerving and crossing each other under the blank white sky. Then she would go inside and read or listen to the wireless or have long and involved conversa- tions with Jane.
    She and Jane had two topics. One was food – never the cooking of it, but rather the rationing of it; what she or Jane could get their hands on or where they’d heard about a supply of something, and arrangements for obtaining it. Their other topic was the various members of each other’s families and what part of the country they lived in.They would take one or both of these conversations as far as they could, and Elizabeth would listen to Jane talk, and picture Lewis and his friends and wonder how far they were going, and if they were having fun.
    Lewis had got used to his bike and it was a better size every day. In the group of children, he and Ed and Tom were usually in front, Tamsin somewhere in the middle with whoever else was there that day, and little Kit always slogging along behind. She fell off all the time, she couldn’t manage the corners very well and one or other of them would have to stop and help her, which made her proud and angry. Lewis felt sorry for Kit, she was so quiet and intense and never seemed happy to be with them but just constantly striving. He thought it would be horrible to have a sister like Tamsin who was pretty and always seemed to be having such fun. She had the boys helping her

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    carry her bike over ditches and unhooking her hem from wire from the age of ten, and there was never any doubt she was the best and most loved even amongst a group of children. Today was very still and there were flies so that the children had to go quickly to escape them.
    ‘Keep your mouth shut!’ shouted Ed,‘I just swallowed one!’ There were tiny black beetles that stuck to their clothes, which they called thunderbugs.You could crush them between
    your nails if you wanted and they didn’t have any blood.
    There was still no wind at all.They were going to the top of New Hill, which was a haul, but once you were up you could freewheel really fast down the other side and then buy toffees inTurville.The bikes wobbled from side to side up the hill.Their breath came in puffs and shunts like small steam trains. Lewis was counting in his head to get to the top and thinking about campfires.There was a metallic snapping sound and the familiar scrabbling scuffle of Kit falling off. They stopped in a ragged group and leaned on one foot or twisted round to look back.
    ‘Typical,’ said Tamsin, whose favourite word this was. ‘What is it, Kit?’ called Joanna, but she was stalling for time;
    it was plain Kit’s chain had broken and Kit herself was bleeding
    – if not dramatically, then at least quite noticeably from her elbow.
    ‘Are you all right?’ shouted Tamsin, and Kit, in some pain, nodded.
    ‘She’ll have to go back,’ said Ed.‘You’ll have to go back!’ ‘She can’t go back on her own,’ said Joanna,‘It’s miles.’ They all stared at Kit who glared back, guilty and defiant.
    She bent down as if to mend the chain and picked up its dangling end.
    ‘Well, don’t do that, that’s just stupid, you’ll get covered and

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    it can’t be helped.’ Tamsin