The Third Day, The Frost by John Marsden Read Free Book Online

course. But suddenly I had an awful thought.
‘My God,’ I said to Homer, ‘I hope he didn’t really fall down
it.’
    Another slow hour passed. Then I saw a
movement by the corner of the shed. I called out, softy, to the
others but there was no need. They had already seen it. We all
craned forward. It was an agonising moment. Kevin or not Kevin?
Success or failure? Life or death?
    He sprinted towards us, grinning from ear to
ear. It was as though he were unloading months of misery with this
one short run to freedom. I wanted to cheer but it wouldn’t have
been a good idea. We were still in deadly peril, hanging around
there and, more importantly, Kevin’s family were in deadly peril. I
took a step forward to greet him.
    The soldier seemed to come from nowhere. He
didn’t, of course. There was an old rainwater tank, open to the
sky, that had been dumped between the buildings and the bush. It
had been there so long that weeds had started to grow through it
and over it. It had become part of the landscape and so we hadn’t
even noticed it. But the soldier must have concealed himself in it
sometime before dawn. He was one smart cookie.
    He stood with his back to us. Kevin had
stopped in an instant and stood there, mouth open, the colour
draining from his face. The soldier had a rifle pointing at Kevin,
and the rifle was cocked. The only thing we had going for us was
that he obviously didn’t know we were behind him.
    I didn’t know what to do, couldn’t think of a
single thing that might help. All I knew was that I had completely
screwed up and people were going to die. I heard the soldier say,
‘You think I stupid. They think I stupid. But I no stupid. You
stupid.’
    I still couldn’t think of anything to say or
do. Behind me there was a slight movement, a stealthy sound. I
turned my head enough to see, not moving my body in case the
soldier sensed it. Homer had opened the top of his pack and was in
the process of withdrawing his shotgun. He had it half out of the
pack already. Further across I saw Lee fishing in his pack for
something. I made frantic signals at Homer with my face, widening
my eyes and wiggling my eyebrows. I didn’t know what the solution
was, but it wasn’t the shotgun. There were a dozen or more
colonists up at the main house; they were sure to be better armed
than us. I heard the soldier say to Kevin: ‘You walk to house.’ At
that moment Lee began to move forward. Sick with knowledge, I made
myself look at his hands to see what he held. I expected to see a
knife, like the one he had used to kill the young soldier back in
the Holloway Valley. But he held no knife. He had not found what
he’d been looking for in his pack, and now his hands were at his
waist. What he was quickly pulling off was worse than a knife. It
was his leather-plaited belt.
    Lee’s eyes were wide open, like spotlights. He
moved with the stealth of a feral cat – so quietly that I only
heard the slightest crunch as he took each footstep. I somehow
found time to be jealous of his grace and lightness of tread. But
then I realised I was going to have to do more than watch.
    In some ways what Lee had was the perfect
weapon. The belt ran through two small rings of steel, and came
back between them to get its tension. It was the kind of belt that
we all wore: most of us had made our own in Leatherwork. It took
Lee, though, to think of using one as a weapon. I had a horrible
sick awareness that it was probably going to be perfect. But there
was one big problem: Lee was going to try to strangle this guy with
a belt while the guy stood there holding a gun. It was probably the
bravest, stupidest thing I’d ever seen anyone try to do. I knew I
had to help.
    The soldier was losing his temper fast. ‘Turn
round!’ he shouted at Kevin. ‘You bad boy! You turn round!’
    Kevin looked terrified. He had seen Lee moving
up behind the soldier and I don’t know who he was more scared of:
Lee or the soldier. But at least the man was