Crooked Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

to regret your current greed.’ He leaned back in his seat and opened a book.
    Outside, London moved past very slowly. Most of the view was of backyards and washing lines, though if Noel squashed his cheek against the window, he could see enough of the sky to spot the odd barrage balloon.
    â€˜I need to go to the WC,’ said Shirley Green.
    â€˜In Dorset,’ said one of the Ferris twins, ‘they only had an outside lav. That’s why we came home. We wrote to our mum and she came and got us. She said if we’d stayed we’d have got typhoid. Mr Waring?’
    â€˜Hmm?’
    â€˜We’re only allowed to go somewhere with an inside lav. Our mum said that we—’
    â€˜There wasn’t even electricity where I was,’ said Roy Pursey, interrupting. ‘They used flipping candles.’
    â€˜Detention,’ said Mr Waring.
    â€˜We’re not at school, sir.’
    â€˜Nevertheless, my first act when we resume lessons will be to place you in detention for use of bad language.’
    The train passed over a bridge and Noel glimpsed a lorry-load of soldiers on the road beneath. If Hitler invaded, as he probably would, then the next time he came to London, the streets might be full of Nazis. Everyone would have to learn German. Uncle Geoffrey, as a member of the Conservative Party, would be lined up against a wall and shot.
    â€˜What are you smirking about?’ asked Roy Pursey.
    â€˜Nothing,’ said Noel.
    â€˜What’s in the notebook?’
    â€˜Nothing,’ said Noel, again. Roy snatched it and squinted at the rows of symbols.
    â€˜It’s gobbledegook,’ he said.
    Noel took it back, quietly satisfied. It was a very simple code called ‘Pigpen’ and he had just written Roy Pursey is the most ignorant and unpleasant boy in Rhyll Street Junior School .
    The train gathered speed through the suburbs. Noel wrote down a list of other people who ought to be lined up against a wall and shot. The next time that he glanced out of the window, he saw a field, with a goat.
    â€˜It’s a cow!’ shouted a Ferris twin.
    â€˜And there’s a horse getting on top of another horse,’ said Shirley Green. ‘Right on top of it. Why’s it doing that, Mr Waring?’
    â€˜If a train travels at an average speed of forty-five miles per hour for three and a half hours,’ said Mr Waring, ‘and then an average speed of twenty-two miles an hour for five and a quarter hours, what distance would it have covered?’
    Noel wrote two hundred and seventy-three miles in his notebook and then stared out at the mild, flat countryside. The train was beginning to slow again.
    â€˜Are we there yet?’ asked one of the Ferris twins.
    â€˜We’ve only just left London, Doreen,’ said Mr Waring.
    The train slowed still further. Red-brick villas appeared outside the window.
    â€˜It’s a town,’ said Roy Pursey. There was a spire visible above the rooftops.
    â€˜City,’ corrected Mr Waring. ‘It’s St Albans.’
    â€˜You’re not supposed to tell anyone, sir,’ said Roy Pursey. ‘A spy might be listening.’
    â€˜And which of your comrades do you suspect of being in the pay of the Third Reich?’
    â€˜It’s not me,’ said Harvey Madeley.
    â€˜A classic double-bluff,’ said Mr Waring. ‘Harvey’s your spy.’
    Roy shook his head and looked pointedly at Noel. ‘No, sir. It would be someone who started coming to our school out of nowhere six months ago, and who never speaks and when he does it’s posh and who writes everything down.’
    â€˜We’re stopping at a station ,’ said Doreen Ferris, excitedly. ‘We’re here!’
    A big woman with a green hat and yellow teeth smiled brightly at them through the window.
    â€˜Hello, little Londoners,’ she shouted. ‘Welcome to safety.’

    Vee paused with a plate in her hand, and