The True Story of Spit MacPhee by James Aldridge Read Free Book Online Page A

was about to say he changed his mind about it. ‘Do you want to come?’ he said to Sadie.
    Sadie was readily frightened and yet she was also determined. ‘Can I go?’ she said to her mother. ‘Just for a little while.’
    ‘But it’s so dark,’ her mother said. ‘You won’t be able to see your way near the river.’
    ‘That’s nothing,’ Spit said. ‘I know the way blindfold.’
    Mrs Tree looked worried, but she too had her own way of making a difficult decision. ‘You’ll have to hold her hand, Spit. I shan’t let her go otherwise.’
    ‘You mean just on the way up there?’ Spit said.
    ‘Yes. And when you’re at the willows, Sadie has to sit right away from the river. No paddling or swimming. I want you to promise me that.’
    ‘That’s all right,’ Spit said. ‘It would frighten the fish anyway.’
    Mrs Tree was still worried but she said to Sadie, ‘Do you really want to go?’
    Sadie pulled in her lips nervously and nodded.
    Spit said he would come at seven o’clock, and he would give a special whistle, which he demonstrated piercingly. Then, saying in a business-like way, ‘I have to go home now,’ he was up and out in a few seconds, leaving Sadie and Mrs Tree feeling rather sorry in their quiet kitchen that they had suddenly lost a noise and a force and a small attack on their isolation, which left them feeling rather empty.
    ‘It’s such a pity,’ Mrs Tree said to Sadie.
    Sadie didn’t ask what was the pity, but her silence and her slight frown asked the question anyway.
    ‘He’s a very nice boy, considering all the problems he and old Mr MacPhee have had to live with.’
    ‘He doesn’t seem to mind,’ Sadie said.
    ‘I don’t think he really understands,’ Grace Tree said but did not go any further. She shook her head a little and left it there.
    At first nobody was aware of Spit and Sadie’s friendship. It wasn’t difficult to keep it modest enough to be unobtrusive, and it gave them a chance to enjoy themselves. Sadie was a good pupil, and it wasn’t too long before she was swimming more than a few strokes and learning to dive and keep her head under water. Spit also taught her how to fish, how to bait with worm or mussels, and how to cast the line out. She knew where all his crayfish drums were, a secret that Spit normally kept to himself, because someone in town was sure to take a look at them and maybe steal the crayfish if they knew where they were. He couldn’t get her across to Pental Island because that was going too far for Mrs Tree’s comfort. But Mrs Tree no longer walked along the river bank at night waiting anxiously when Sadie went with Spit to the willows, or to inspect his crayfish drums. She had given Sadie an electric torch, but after trying it out one night when it was particularly dark, Sadie said to her mother, ‘It’s not much use, Mum, because when your eyes get used to the dark you can see a lot more than you can see with a torch. And Spit can see everything.’
    What became a habit, too, was Spit’s visits to the Trees’ kitchen, although he would never accept their invitation to eat his six o’clock tea there. ‘I have to eat with my grandfather,’ he would say, and they didn’t press him. But he knew, without being told, to keep away when Jack Tree was at home, although he was now curious about Mr Tree. Previously he had taken no more notice of Jack than he had of most of the adults in town who either greeted him, ignored him, or treated him and his grandfather as freaks. Occasionally Jack Tree – deciding to notice him – would say ‘Goodday, Spit,’ in his crisp, upright, disciplined way, and Spit would return the greeting equally at the top of his voice.
    So, like everyone else in town, Spit kept his distance from the Tree household when he had to. But the day that he saw Mr Tree by the river looking carefully at the water’s edge, Spit considered himself to be on equal ground. The river was his domain. He watched Mr Tree without