City of the Falling Sky Read Online Free PDF Page A

the stench that was
coming from it. After spending three days worth of lunch money on
it, who would?”
    “ What did it taste
like?”
    “ Like beef
gravy.”
    “ Oh,” Seckry said, his
stomach churning slightly.
    “ I just think of myself as
lucky actually. At least I didn’t get a chili sandwich. Seen a few
of those come out of that thing. Poor first year kid had to be
taken to hospital after one of those.”
    “ What? Are you
serious?”
    “ Yep.”
    The slowly chewing face of the triumphant
first year over the other side of the building had now transformed
from a gleeful smile into horrified realisation.
    Tenk craned his head to see.
    “ Ooh!” he said, cringing, as
though he was feeling the first year’s pain. “Looks like that was a
. . . horseradish muffin.”
    When Seckry and Tenk had both finished their
meals they paid for them at a coin operated booth and returned to
the main building.
    “ So what part of the city
did you move to?” Tenk asked as they were walking.
    “ We got a flat here in the
east partition. It’s in a place called Kerik Square. You know
it?”
    “ You’re kidding me? That’s
where I live,” said Tenk, exasperatedly.
    “ Really? Which block are you
in?”
    “ Block seventeen, third
floor. How about you?”
    “ I think it’s block twenty
two.”
    “ Man, we’ll have to catch
the monorail to school together tomorrow. We must have been on the
same one this morning but in different carriages.”
    “ Actually, I saw you this
morning,” Seckry admitted. “You had your headphones on and you
seemed to be enjoying the music.”
    “ Oh, yeah . . . I was
listening to Graveturner. You heard of them? They’re this doom
metal band that’s just burst onto the scene. One of the tracks on
their new album is a two hour long epic. It’s insane.”
    “ Haven’t heard of them,”
Seckry said. “I mostly listen to a band called The Broken
Motion.”
    “ The Broken Motion? You’ve
got good taste. The Broken Motion are awesome.”
    Seckry smiled. The Broken Motion were his
favourite band of all time, and he’d never met anyone who’d even
heard of them, never mind liked them too.
     
    Their next lesson was geography with a
gentle, old fashioned man named Mr Pegglewim who appeared to be in
his fifties from a distance, but was actually only in his early
thirties. It didn’t take long for Seckry to realise that he didn’t
have much control over the class and as soon as the first paper
aeroplane had been thrown into the air, it was just a downhill
spiral into complete chaos. By the end of the lesson, the poor man
had looked close to tears, with an ink stamp floating in his coffee
and a giant drawing of an anarchy symbol on his whiteboard which
someone had actually signed at the bottom.
     
    Their last lesson of the day was inverse
mathematics with a professor named Cookrook, but Seckry just wanted
to go home. As much as he was enjoying Tenk’s company, he was
missing Marne like crazy. He just wanted to go back to his old
living room and chill out on his sofa watching the TV. He hated
maths enough in his old school. Now he was dreading it.
    Their room was locked, so a small queue had
formed in the corridor. Seckry and Tenk were just in front of a
big, awkward looking boy with unfocussed eyes and a mouth that hung
slightly open from the weight of his chin. Another kid with a ton
of freckles and a chunk missing from his right ear seemed to be
harassing him.
    “ Oi, Conker, what you
drooling at?”
    There was no response.
    “ Looking at my missus, is
it? Think you can have a piece? Got no chance mate.”
    The large boy named Conker looked away.
    “ Don’t roll your eyes at
me.”
    “ I didn’t.” Conker’s voice
was guttural and heavy compared to the freckly faced fast
talker’s.
    “ Yeah you did, I saw you.
Don’t think you can cheek me. Why’d they call you Conker
anyway?”
    There was silence.
    “ You deaf? I said why’d they
call you Conker?”
    The boy huffed.