These Dark Wings by John Owen Theobald Read Free Book Online

feels a week long.
    Why did Mum take that stupid bus? What was she thinking? She has left me here, alone, with a sick uncle and mean commoners. How could she?
    It is a short walk to the loo, at least, even if the battlements are freezing. Of course now it is raining, any trace of the sunny morning gone. And I’ve forgotten my umbrella.
    Orrk. Orrk.
    A raven on the Green, its dead-black eyes following me. Raven Edgar, I am sure.
    ‘Move,’ I say harshly.
    The bird breaks into a reluctant trot.
    The loo is a room of cramped, grey stone. I shiver as I grab the pull chain and hurry back outside. Just as I reach the school (Edgar jeers from a stone perch), I feel a headache nagging at me. I am especially frightened by headaches. When Mum had her migraines, it was horrible – ‘savage’, she called it. She would have to lie still on the bed, no sound or lights, with brown paper soaked in vinegar across her temples.
    If I can make it through the final class, Uncle will have aspirin. And I will tell him how I can never step foot in this horrible school again.
    ‘You new?’
    A boy is gazing at me. He has bushy, dark hair and a slightly too large head – which I recognize as belonging to the boy who sits two in front of me, just to the left. His eyes are red like everyone’s from the hanging smoke and dust.
    He is standing alone in the rain. Why are these kids so bloody mean? I squint my eyes at him.
    ‘Don’t call me Magpie—’
    ‘Did you see the Heinkels dive and hit the wharf last night? They look like cigars, but they drop breadbaskets. You need sand for those, not water.’
    He speaks so rapidly I have trouble following him. The accent is still unfamiliar. At least he isn’t being mean. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
    ‘Yes,’ I say, offering a slow smile. ‘I’m called Anna. Anna Cooper. Who are you?’
    ‘Me? Bomb expert,’ he says, shaking my hand. ‘Timothy Squire.’
    The rain is cold and slanting and we are not quite under the cover of the ledge. I feel my hair growing heavy in the damp.
    ‘Bomb expert?’
    ‘You don’t believe me?’ He cocks an eyebrow, which only draws attention to the expanse of his head above. ‘You think I run and hide in the shelter with the old folks? Come on then. Tomorrow afternoon, when the tide’s out, me and the lads’ll go down to Pier Head. Easy enough to find an incendiary in the mud. All you do is unscrew the cap, remove the phosphorous into a paper, right? Then chuck it on the bonfire and watch it go up.’
    Timothy Squire talks and talks, the wind whisking his hair. And in those few moments I learn many things. Chiefly, that he doesn’t care where I’m from or why I’m here. Also, and at length, that he escapes the Tower. He meets up with friends, goes bomb-hunting, plays street cricket, explores wreckage. A possible recruit, indeed.
    ‘Stray cats are everywhere – all fat and lazy because high explosives wrecked the sewers and now there’s too many rats to eat.’
    He talks too of ‘fireweed’, the pink flowers that grow and blossom in the ashes of the city. And I know it is true. There is something... a smell... of air and bright wind. He doesn’t smell like stone and darkness, but of freedom – of the world. We are still standing, defenceless, in the rain.
    ‘Can you show me?’
    ‘’Course.’
    He offers me half a biscuit, pushing the other half into his mouth. I take the biscuit and hold it in my hand. All I have eaten today are eggs from the chickens and some hollow wartime bread.
    ‘You’ll love it. Bombs leave all kinds of mess,’ he says, chewing. ‘Dead horses. Horse guts all over the road this morning.’
    Love it? I nod anyway. He can get me out of here .
    A silent moment surfaces, sudden and abrupt, and I rack my thoughts for a way to ask him: When can we go? I am too slow.
    ‘What’re you here for then?’
    ‘I look after the ravens,’ I say, my voice strangely proud.
    ‘Ravens? Not for