Day Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

Dain once asked. ‘We’ve all
the crystalline perfection of forever.’
    It’s the sea that calls them, and the Sun that rises out of it.

CHAPTER
6
    I SHOULDN’T HAVE been here by the river and I should’ve been watching, what with
the fact that this place is off limits to me, and also rightly dangerous. It’s past
the borders that the Masters define as safe, and it’s territory that is none of my
business. But I’ve been here before, and nothing went wrong. Just looking for yabbies
in the dirty water—you get a bunch of them, cook them up (all squealing, the damn
things cry for mercy no matter what Dain says) and they’re tasty. I had a hunger
for them today, and there was already a bunch of them on the grass beside me, insecty
legs twitching. All that sweet meat not knowing what I had planned for it.
    But I’m tired. And tired’s halfway to blind, which is why I shouldn’t have been here.
    I almost miss the fella that comes out of the grass by the river. Slick and fast
as a snake. I get just a flash of that movement in the corner of my eye and I roll
and bolt straight into the water. So I’m only touched by the briefest passing of
the knife: a slice, skin parting, blood spilling, but I’m not spitted on it, which
was what the bastard was aiming for. Then water soaks me or blood or both.
    He grunts behind me and I’m already scrambling deep into water, fast as the fire
in that cut, fast as fear into the reeds and rocks and they’re all slapping and scratching
at my feet, maybe even a big old catfish having a nibble as I crash past.
    Don’t have much on me. Just my pocket knife and the piss in my pants.
    I shouldn’t have been there, but I was.
    Dain would be mad—even more than he is already. But that is a black cloud on the
horizon of later. Now is a knife at my back and the heavy breaths of a man too close
behind.
    I’ve a choice: left or right?
    Left leads against the flow of the river, and out of town. Right swings back around,
heads towards Handly Bridge. I’ve jumped off its edge often enough, but the man’s
already crashing that way. I can swim but not that fast. And left there’s bulrushes
and cover. So I go that way, hoping there’s no one else. I slap against the weight
of the river, already up against my thighs, flicking my gaze back.
    The man’s giving chase with a machete in one thick-fingered hand. He’s bearded, round
at the belly, arms thick as my legs. I know the type. I can smell the grog even from
here, drinks to keep himself brave. It’ll make him clumsy, though. Probably been
watching me and mine, waiting for the right time. Waiting for one of us to do something
stupid.
    And it had to be me.
    I think of Dougie, Grove, the Parson boys, those crazy twins with the wild eyes,
and Twitch, nervous and laughing, always running or riding or worrying. I’m faster
on my feet than all of them and I’m the one’s going to get gutted by a drunk with
a big knife.
    Not yet.
    Not yet.
    The reeds close around me, and I run where I know they’re thickest and the water’s
deepest, shouting: Got a knife too. Cut you if you come closer.
    He grunts again but he doesn’t come through the reeds and I find myself a hidey hole,
been playing and hiding in these waters since I can remember—no matter that I shouldn’t
a been there. Been clipped under the ear for it many times, too, given a bloody nose
and a head ringing. Dain’s not cruel, not in that way, but some things he wants to
make stick, he says, since he can’t watch over me when the Sun rises. Boys are allowed
some mischiefs, but they’re not allowed everything. That’d be anarchy plain and simple.
    Back’s sore where he cut me but I’ve had worse. No breath whistling through the wound;
no taste of blood—just snot, maybe tears. You’d cry too. I’m not immune to terrors
just cause of whose roof shelters me. I’m as scared as you, beneath the strut. This
is the only time I’ll tell you that. But it’s there, remember that,