Winter Door by Isobelle Carmody Read Free Book Online Page B

better than anyone else, Logan. I really don’t. If I seem different sometimes, it’s because of some things that happened to me last summer. Not just my mam being in an accident.”
    He gave her a look she could not quite read, and she thought he might ask What things? but instead he said, “Maybe we better make it an anonymous call to the cops. We ought to let someone know those things are on the loose. But we’ll have to think of a story. If we say we got chased by giant feral pigs, the police’ll think it’s a hoax and take no notice.”
    Rage stared at him. “Pigs? They were wolves.”
    Logan frowned at her. “Are you nuts? Didn’t you see the tusks and their red eyes?” He was already headed for the phone beyond the lockers. Rage followed, bemused.
    “Logan, I didn’t see pigs, feral or otherwise. I saw wolves!”
    Logan turned to her, his face grimly certain. “Look, I know what a boar looks like, all right? One chased me when I was about six. I have a scar from my belly button to my neck to prove it, and I was about three inches from its face when it tried to gut me. I still have nightmares about it sometimes.”
    Rage was silenced by the vision this summoned up. Was it possible that she had only imagined seeing wolves? Logan was now dialing triple zero, and putting on a much older voice, he described having seen feral pigs in the school grounds near the lower bike shed. He hung up while the policewoman was in the middle of asking for his name and address.
    “That was amazing,” Rage said. “You really sounded older and totally responsible. Like a doctor or something.”
    “I can do voices,” Logan said gruffly, but she could see that he was pleased by her praise.
    Rage remembered something he had said earlier, and after a slight hesitation, she asked, “Logan, what happened to Mrs. Marren?”
    Logan gave a short bark of laughter. “You are a cool one, Rebecca Jane.”
    “Rage,” she corrected him automatically, then flushed at what he might say.
    But he smiled and made a gesture of surrender with his hands. “Rage, then. I was in the office waiting to get my ear chewed when a phone call came in for you, so I pricked up my ears. It was the Marren woman calling to say she wouldn’t be able to pick you up and bring you home because she’d had an accident.”
    “Oh no!” Rage cried.
    “It’s okay. It wasn’t bad. She drove into a ditch and needed a tractor to get her out. From what I heard, no one was hurt, but I guess she was freaked by what happened. There was a message for Anabel to go to her aunt’s, and you’re supposed to call that Somersby woman so that she can arrange accommodation for tonight if your uncle can’t come and get you. I offered to give you the message. I figured you’d come back to the school when no one turned up to pick you up, so I waited.”
    “What were you going to do?” Rage asked a little stiffly.
    He looked sheepish but also slightly belligerent. “I dunno. I meant to scare you, but you wouldn’t scare, so I got mad….” Rage said nothing and he suddenly scowled. “Look, I said I was sorry about the stupid books.”
    “They’re not stupid,” Rage said.
    “They are if you can’t read!” Logan snarled. Then he whitened. “You better not tell anyone I said that. Anyway, it’s a lie.”
    Rage laughed a little. “Logan, tonight we were almost eaten by giant…giant somethings, and we hid in a bathroom together, so I think that better count as some sort of truce, don’t you?”
    Logan gave a gusty sigh. “Yeah. Sorry. But look, I was only joking about not being able to read.”
    “Sure,” Rage said. “Look, I better call my uncle again.” It was a hint but Logan didn’t get it. He stood by while she called and left a message about Mrs. Marren’s accident.
    “No one home?”
    She shook her head, chewing her lip. “I called already on my way back to the school, so he might have got the first message and already be on his way.”
    “Is that