Black Chalk Read Online Free PDF

school in my year stayed in the same track I was following, so that by the time I was in sixth form, I’d known many of my friends for over ten years.
    Jeffrey was foremost amongst them. We’d first met as preschoolers on the cricket field, haggling about which of our fathers was the better player. When the cricket season threw us together, we seemed to spend every weekend with one another. He even came to Sicily with us one summer, the year after I went to the French Alps with his family. The winters saw us drift away from each other, as I had squash and football, and he played rugby, but even if I didn’t see him outside school for a month, I always felt like I could call him and be at his house the next day, kicking a ball against the yellow-bricked wall at the back of his garden.
    Jeffrey never disliked Eric as some of the others did, but he never understood why I was friends with him either. One day soon after Eric arrived at our school, as Paul Cumnor was relating an anecdote about him – the startled look he’d had when a teacher addressed him, his stumbling answer – Jeffrey turned to me and, in his usual tone, told the others that I’d been to Eric’s the previous weekend.
    â€˜What’s he like?’ he asked me. ‘What do you like about him anyway?’
    At that instant in time, Eric’s social standing was in the balance. He hadn’t come across as likeable. Had he been awkward, we would have happily cast him aside, but his case seemed more complicated. Only a week earlier, at lunch break, I’d been chatting with Jeffrey, Tom and the usual crew, when I saw Eric pace around the building, his head down, his floppy black hair covering his eyes. The second time he walked by, I tried calling him over to our group, but he walked on as though he hadn’t heard me, his eyes fixed on the pavement. Tom noticed and made a joke, but no one followed his lead.
    Opinions were still divided. One camp condemned him – Paul and Tom Davies were in that camp. If he hadn’t made it yet, he wasn’t worth the effort. And another, to which it seemed most people subscribed, Jeffrey among them, still hadn’t formed an opinion. Eric had just arrived and, despite his oddness, hadn’t done anything that deserved to be condemned yet.
    And in that moment, as Paul and Tom Davies smirked, hoping I’d give them some ammunition, as Jeffrey looked at me, sincerely wanting to know what I thought, all I could do was shrug and smile.
    â€˜I don’t know. He seems alright to me,’ I said.
    Paul looked at Tom and sniggered. And I laughed along, genuinely happy to share in the joke.
    ***
    The day after I first woke up, when the house and soot felt most distant, my mother grabbed my hand and talked to me. Her fingers squeezing mine comforted me more than her worried smile and the kindness in her moist eyes. She asked me how I was. Finding my voice strengthened, I told her the fever was gone. It had left me with an intense tiredness, deep enough that my lacerated stomach kept quiet.
    â€˜That’s good, Nate. Good.’ She let go of my hand and leaned back far enough that I could no longer make out her familiar perfume.
    â€˜Think happy thoughts. Are you seeing yourself on the cricket field?’
    â€˜No, but you’re right,’ I smiled. ‘I should.’
    â€˜Yes, think about playing cricket with your brother and your father…’ Her voice trailed off as she edged a little further away. ‘Did you manage to fix your bat?’ she asked, her voice almost steady.
    â€˜I think so. It took a few goes but it looked good in the end…’ The roundness of her eyes and the cock of her eyebrow made me feel as though I were lying.
    â€˜Oh… I hope you didn’t spend too much time working on it. Dad can buy you a new one if you need.’
    â€˜No, it’s alright. It only took a few minutes, but it didn’t work the first