The Road of Bones by Anne Fine Read Free Book Online Page A

the guards’ caps. Then, as the foreman turned with a finger stretched to point, I felt Karl’s hand on me for the second time within twenty-four hours. He was pushing me down behind his freshly laidbricks.
    â€˜It’s you they’re after.’
    â€˜Me?’
    â€˜Aren’t you the one who opened his mouth too wide over his soup?’
    â€˜All I said was—’
    He cut me off. ‘Whatever you said, it was more than enough.’ Still holding my head down, he was pulling me over the rough cement floor to the other side of the building, alongside the trees.
    â€˜Quick!’ he said. ‘Get your foot in the bucket.’
    â€˜In the bucket?’ I peered over the edge. What was he thinking? To lower me over like a load of mortar being sent back down?
    I thought he was mad and my face must have shown it.
    â€˜Use your wits, Yuri. Either you risk a fall now, or you wait for those men to make even more of a mess of you later, here or in their cells.’
    â€˜Cells?’
    â€˜Yuri, wake up! You’ve seen the colour of their uniforms. You know who’s coming for you.’
    And if I was pale before, now I was grey with fright. I knew the men must already be striding across the yard towards our block, kicking aside anything that lay in their path, as they’d soon be kicking me. Suddenly I felt I could smell, even from so far up, the leather of their holsters and the oil in their guns. I would be dragged away without a chance. I’d heard enough about the Leader’s guards to know that either I’d never be seen again or, if I did come back, people would take one look at what was left of me and think the men in grey would have been kinder to finish the job properly while they still had me.
    â€˜Yuri!’
    This time I jumped to it. I held out my arms, and Big Karl lifted me, as if I were a child, onto the parapet. I jammed my foot in the bucket so hard it felt as if I’d cracked half the small bones. Karl fed me a short length of rope and closed my hands round it with his own iron grip. He tipped the bucket. It slid off the parapet with a scraping noise I felt must alert the whole world to what was happening on our side of the half-built block.
    Almost at once the bucket fell away, with me swaying dangerously, out in thin air.
    I clung, sick with fright, as Karl began to lower me. The bucket rocked. I shut my eyes in terror. Surely I must weigh more than a bucket of mortar. Surely the rope would snap and, like Alyosha, I’d go hurtling to the ground.
    The bucket fell in sickening jerks. Desperate to know how fast we were descending, I forced myself to open my eyes. Karl must have been letting me down hand over hand, controlled and steady at his end, jerk and sway at mine. My hands were slick with sweat, but somehow I kept my fingers round the rope even through desperate cramps. Each time the rope caught, a juddering pain ran through the foot jammed in the bucket.
    Down and down I went. Karl was lowering me at one of the places along the building’s shell where there were no gaps for windows so I had no fear of being seen. Behind me were the bushes and trees we’d scoured for firewood on days too cold to get the mortar, unfrozen, to the men. At least I knew the paths. And now the trees were in leaf, I might at least stand a chance of getting away without being spotted.
    From the top of the building I heard an angryshout. Karl’s voice. ‘Yuri! Damn you, boy! Yuri! Where are you? Get up here with those bricks! I’m waiting!’
    If he was trying to fool the guards, they must be close now.
    Just at that moment the bucket started sliding at such a rate, it was like falling. Were the guards at the top of the ladders? Now I knew Karl must be letting the last of the rope run through his palms, burning his skin.
    I hit the ground.
    â€˜Bricks here! Bricks, I say!’ I heard Karl roar to cover the noise my bucket made as it rolled down