No Way Of Telling Read Online Free PDF

the room appear round her, conjured out of the black void by one small wavering flame. Amy lay, covered to the tip of her nose by bedclothes, and allowed her eyes to rest gratefully on the chest-of-drawers which, although invisible, had been there all the time, exactly the same as usual.
    “Well, Amy,” said Mrs Bowen, finally, “this is what I think—if he’s there, then that’s where he is, and there’s nothing we can do about it. There’s no one can hear us if we shout, and the two of us put together aren’t so strong as that man’s little finger. We might as well know it—we’re on our own. And if this snow keeps on it’ll be a good few days before we see another face. It’s no use for us to be frightened—that won’t help us one little bit—and besides, it’s a feeling I don’t enjoy. So now—I don’t mean to bother any more tonight about where he is.”
    Amy kept her eyes on the chest-of-drawers and counted the knobs. A slight sensation of sleepiness crept over her. There were eight knobs. Her grandmother’s words went round and round in her head: they were sensible words.
    “Granny? How long are you going to stay awake?”
    “Longer than you.”
    “What about the candle?”
    “I’ll blow it out, later.”
    “I don’t understand—” said Amy, struggling to disentangle a thought, a picture, some remembrance, from the yellow knobs of the chest-of-drawers going round and round in her head.

4 - No Snow on the Chopping-Block
    Amy overslept. She opened her eyes with a feeling of vague disquiet. Something was wrong. Why was she in her grandmother’s bed and where was her grandmother? Then she heard the clock downstairs begin to strike, and it struck nine times instead of seven, twice too often. Horrified, she sprang out of bed. She had overslept and Mrs Rhys would have gone long ago. But when she pulled the curtains apart there was no view at all: the panes of glass were blocked in, a solid white. Snow! And then she remembered yesterday, and all that had happened—everything.
    Her grandmother was calling to her from below.
    “Amy! Come along down. Don’t stop to put your clothes on —I’ve made the tea. You can have my shawl to keep warm in.”
    Bare-footed, half-awake, half-asleep, Amy pattered downstairs. Mrs Bowen was just stooping to put the pot of tea on the hob in front of the fire which burnt with the loud crackle and fuss of a fire only recently lit. Mick came to meet her, wagging his tail. Queenie had already settled herself for the morning in Mrs Bowen’s well-padded basket-chair. Except for the time on the clock everything had the appearance of being the same as usual. Yawning, Amy sat back submissively in the cushioned rocker and allowed her grandmother to tuck the shawl round her and even, as though she were once again a very little girl, to pull on the stockings that had been hanging since she came home yesterday on the string over the fire.
    “I didn’t see the sense in rousing you any earlier, Amy—it’s not as though we’ve got a very busy day ahead of us. Mind, there’s any amount of mending if it’s work we’re after, and the brasses can always do with an extra polish.”
    Amy listened without replying. She was letting herself get used to the idea that today was really, in spite of appearances, different from most days: up late, no school. There was another difference too; but this she averted her mind from, feeling not yet quite ready to think about it.
    “I heard the news at eight o’clock,” said Mrs Bowen, “and it was all the same—tales of snow, far and wide. It seems it’s the heaviest fall we’ve had for years, and there’s more on the way, so that’s a fine prospect. Here’s your tea now, Amy—drink it up and then you can get yourself dressed and see to the chickens, and time you’ve done them I’ll have the breakfast ready.”
    The more her grandmother continued to talk and behave as though nothing strange had taken place the night before,