Never Let Me Go (Movie Tie-In Edition) Read Online Free PDF Page B

I asked Tommy. ‘It wasn’t some clever way of telling you off?’
    ‘It definitely wasn’t anything like that. Anyway …’ For the first time he seemed worried about being overheard and glanced over his shoulder towards the house. The Juniors at the window had lost interest and gone; some girls from our year were walking towards the pavilion, but they were still a good way off. Tommy turned back to me and said almost in a whisper:
    ‘Anyway, when she said all this, she was shaking .’
    ‘What do you mean, shaking?’
    ‘Shaking. With rage. I could see her. She was furious. But furious deep inside.’
    ‘Who at?’
    ‘I wasn’t sure. Not at me anyway, that was the most important thing!’ He gave a laugh, then became serious again. ‘I don’t know who she was angry with. But she was angry all right.’
    I stood up again because my calves were aching. ‘It’s pretty weird, Tommy.’
    ‘Funny thing is, this talk with her, it did help. Helped a lot. When you were saying earlier on, about how things seemed better for me now. Well, it’s because of that. Because afterwards, thinking about what she’d said, I realised she was right, that it wasn’t my fault. Okay, I hadn’t handled it well. But deep down, it wasn’t my fault. That’s what made the difference. And whenever I felt rocky about it, I’d catch sight of her walking about, or I’d be in one of her lessons, and she wouldn’t say anything about our talk, but I’d look at her, and she’d sometimes see me and give me a little nod. And that’s all I needed. You were asking earlier if something had happened. Well, that’s what happened. But Kath, listen, don’t breathe a word to anyone about this, right?’
    I nodded, but asked: ‘Did she make you promise that?’
    ‘No, no, she didn’t make me promise anything. But you’re not to breathe a word. You’ve got to really promise.’
    ‘All right.’ The girls heading for the pavilion had spotted me and were waving and calling. I waved back and said to Tommy: ‘I’d better go. We can talk more about it soon.’
    But Tommy ignored this. ‘There’s something else,’ he went on. ‘Something else she said I can’t quite figure out. I was going toask you about it. She said we weren’t being taught enough, something like that.’
    ‘Taught enough? You mean she thinks we should be studying even harder than we are?’
    ‘No, I don’t think she meant that. What she was talking about was, you know, about us . What’s going to happen to us one day. Donations and all that.’
    ‘But we have been taught about all that,’ I said. ‘I wonder what she meant. Does she think there are things we haven’t been told yet?’
    Tommy thought for a moment, then shook his head. ‘I don’t think she meant it like that. She just thinks we aren’t taught about it enough. Because she said she’d a good mind to talk to us about it herself.’
    ‘About what exactly?’
    ‘I’m not sure. Maybe I got it all wrong, Kath, I don’t know. Maybe she was meaning something else completely, something else to do with me not being creative. I don’t really understand it.’
    Tommy was looking at me as though he expected me to come up with an answer. I went on thinking for a few seconds, then said:
    ‘Tommy, think back carefully. You said she got angry …’
    ‘Well, that’s what it looked like. She was quiet, but she was shaking.’
    ‘All right, whatever. Let’s say she got angry. Was it when she got angry she started to say this other stuff? About how we weren’t taught enough about donations and the rest of it?’
    ‘I suppose so …’
    ‘Now, Tommy, think. Why did she bring it up? She’s talking about you and you not creating. Then suddenly she starts up about this other stuff. What’s the link? Why did she bring up donations? What’s that got to do with you being creative?’
    ‘I don’t know. There must have been some reason, I suppose. Maybe one thing reminded her of the other. Kath, you’re