No Friend of Mine Read Online Free PDF

them away and paced around the cottage.
    It was obvious Ralph wasn’t coming. Lennie was sure it was something to do with yesterday. Mrs Wilding must have told Ralph he wasn’t to meet Lennie. Or she’d told his father, and George Wilding, who hated miners, had told him to stay in. But would that keep Ralph in? It wouldn’t keep
me
in, Lennie thought. He felt slighted.
    He looked around the cottage. When he’d first found it, he’d thought of it as a secret place where he could be alone. Now, that idea held no charm for him. He slouched home.
    Dad was in the pigeon loft.
    “What’s up, Lennie?”
    “My friend didn’t come.”
    Dad gave him a sympathetic look. “Never mind. Give me a hand with these birds.”
    Ralph wasn’t at the cottage on Friday either. Lennie waited, increasingly hopeless. What could have happened? Perhaps he couldn’t get away. But Ralph didn’t seem the sort to let anyone stop him. He’d sneak out somehow. Perhaps he simply didn’t want to come.
    Lennie left the cottage and wandered towards the dale until he was in sight of the chimney-pots of Ralph’s house. On an impulse he scrambled down the slope, went in through the back garden gate and up to the back door. In the distance a gardener turned and looked at him.
    Lennie knocked on the door. His heart thumped.
    Mrs Martin opened the door.
    “Oh, Lennie,” she said. She didn’t smile.
    Lennie refused to be intimidated. “Is Ralph in?” he asked.
    “Master Ralph,” said Mrs Martin, lightly emphasizing the first word, “is spending the day with his father at work; he’ll be going into the family business when he has finished his education.”
    Lennie wasn’t interested in Ralph’s future, only in today. “When will he be back?”
    “He’ll be there all day, and tomorrow he’s going back to school. You won’t be seeing him again, I’m afraid.”
    The sympathetic words were belied by the satisfaction in her voice. Lennie fumbled for the right thing to say. “Well – tell him – tell him…”
    “I’m not a messenger,” said Mrs Martin. “You’d better run along now, Lennie. I can’t help you.”
    Lennie turned away. A gulf seemed to have opened between him and Ralph. He heard Mrs Martin shut the door. The gardener was still staring.
    I hate these people, Lennie thought; they think I’m nothing.
    He ran to the gate and out into the woods. Back at the cottage he kicked the remains of the fire. It was boring without Ralph. He picked up his mug and tin and took them home.
    Mum was in the back garden, pegging out washing.
    “What’s got into you, then?”
    “Nothing.”
    He went indoors, and sat on the stairs reading comics.
    Mum came in, cleared the table, and spread a thick cloth on it for ironing. Lennie noticed her hands – red and roughened, with splits around the nails. He remembered Ralph’s mother pulling the gloves from her white hands.
    I don’t belong there, he thought.
    “You’re a funny one,” said Mum. “One minute you can’t wait to dash out in the pouring rain, and now it’s fine you’re mooching indoors.” She folded a pillowcase. “You could help your dad with the pigeons.”
    “I helped yesterday.”
    The pigeons no longer interested him. Nothing did.
    The next morning he woke to the sound of pounding feet overhead and raised voices. Mary and Phyl were arguing again.
    He got up, and packed away his bed.
    Upstairs a door slammed and footsteps thundered down the stairs. Phyl’s voice was a shriek, Mum’s – in the kitchen – placating.
    “…creased all down the front!” Lennie heard Phyl say. “I laid it that careful on the chair and in she comes and throws her things down anyhow—”
    “It’ll iron out, Phyl,” Mum said.
    From upstairs came a bellow from Mary. As Lennie stepped into the kitchen a pair of shoes came flying down accompanied by Mary’s voice: “And those, as well. She’s taking over the whole room!”
    Mum shook her head, and turned to Lennie. “The sooner