Jack of Diamonds Read Online Free PDF

calloused hand. ‘Here, Jack, thought I’d forgotten, eh? Yer birthday present.’ Then, seeing my surprise, he added, ‘Now, don’t get too excited, son. I won it in a card game.’ He gave me a sardonic grin. ‘Put it to your gob. It’ll stop you talking shit. You can blow crap instead.’ His great belly heaved as he chortled over his own wit.
    I thanked him profusely, though more out of obsequious fear than from delight at the unexpected gift, taking the silver instrument gingerly from his palm. It was obviously not new – one of its silver cover plates bore a small dent and the words ‘Johnny’s Revenge’ was scratched crudely into the chrome – but it still had a metal button that extended from one side that you apparently pressed, though why, I couldn’t be sure. But I would later learn it was a genuine German Hohner and a fairly decent one, with an excellent tone.
    I guess there are moments in all our lives we later recognise as turning points. This was mine. The moment I brought the harmonica to my mouth and felt the square wooden holes against my lips, I knew something in me had changed forever.

CHAPTER TWO
    NIGHTS AT HOME BY myself were lonely, and would have been unbearable without books. I was no longer reading baby books, but had moved on to bigger ones, such as Robinson Crusoe , Treasure Island and King Solomon’s Mines . At the library I’d been promoted to a new teenage section, and while it was exciting to have access to all those new titles, you were only allowed to take out one per visit and keep it for no more than a week. I needed at least two books at a time, one to read by myself and another to read in bed at night to my mom.
    It always took longer than a week to finish a book with my mom, because we only had twenty minutes or so for reading each night and a bit more time at the weekends. This meant I had to bring the book back even if we hadn’t finished it, then re-borrow it, sometimes for three or four weeks. But because of the rule about only taking one book out at a time, you couldn’t renew a second book on the same day. I found out that some older kids hadn’t been bringing back their books on time and that when they were overdue, they couldn’t pay the fine. This was a particular problem in bad weather, and meant that the most popular titles were sometimes missing. So Mrs Hodgson, the librarian, had made this awful new rule that forced me to make two trips to the library each week.
    As winter settled over the city, I decided to summon up the courage to ask Mrs Hodgson to let me break the rules and take out and return two books at a time. I’d prepared my argument beforehand, trying it out on my mom and going over and over it in my head during the long walk there, but once I arrived I realised that thinking up a good argument and delivering it to someone as fierce as Mrs Hodgson were entirely different things.
    Miss Yolande White, the junior librarian, smiled at me. ‘Well, what’s your choice this week, Jack?’ she asked.
    I handed over The Last of the Mohicans and tried to gather my courage. ‘Please, Miss White, may I see Mrs Hodgson?’ I asked.
    She looked surprised, then frowned. ‘I don’t know, Jack. She doesn’t like to be disturbed. What’s it all about?’
    ‘It’s a private matter,’ I said, trying to sound as grown-up as I could.
    ‘Oh, I see,’ she exclaimed. ‘Wait there and I’ll ask her.’
    So far so good , I thought. She returned a few moments later and said, ‘You’re in luck, Jack. She must be in a good mood. Go ahead.’
    I knocked tentatively on Mrs Hodgson’s office door and gazed at the sign:
    Mrs Jess Hodgson
Chief Librarian
    ‘Come in, Master Spayd,’ she called.
    I entered, closed the door behind me, and went to stand in front of her desk with my hands behind my back. I was suddenly very scared.
    She hadn’t looked up from something she was writing, and I noticed she had a proper fountain pen. ‘Yes?’ she asked at last.