Noah Barleywater Runs Away Read Online Free PDF Page B

Noah put his hand round to check, the pack of magic playing cards had somehow found its way in there.
    ‘Well,
I
didn’t steal them,’ insisted Noah, staring at them in surprise, the picture on the front of the box – the Ace of Spades – winking back at him in delight.
    ‘Then perhaps you can explain what you’re doing with them,’ said the security guard with a sigh.
    ‘If you have questions, you can address them to me,’ snapped Noah’s mother, glaring at the security guard, her voice rising a little now in indignation. ‘My son would never steal a pack of cards. We have dozens of the things at home. I’m teaching him to cheat at poker so he can make his fortune before he’s eighteen.’
    The guard opened his eyes wide and stared at her. He was accustomed to parents turning furiously on their children at moments like this and shaking them until their teeth fell out to get at the truth, but Noah’s mother did not look like the type of woman who would do something like that. She looked like the type of mother who might actually believe her son when he answered her questions, and that was something you didn’t see every day.
    ‘You didn’t steal these cards, did you,’ she asked, turning to him a moment later and phrasing it more as a statement than a question.
    ‘Of course not,’ said Noah, which was the truth, because he hadn’t.
    ‘Well, then,’ said his mother, turning back to the guard again and shrugging her shoulders, ‘there’s nothing more to be said on the subject. An apology will do for now, but I think you should make a donation to a charity of my choice as recompense for your wrongful accusations. Something to do with animals, I think. Small furry onesas they’re my favourite kind.’
    ‘I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that, madam,’ insisted the guard. ‘The fact remains that the cards were in your son’s pocket. And
someone
must have put them there.’
    ‘Ah yes,’ she replied, taking them out of Noah’s hands and smiling as she passed them over. ‘But they are
magic
playing cards, aren’t they? They probably leaped in by themselves.’
    This was another happy memory. The type Noah tried not to think about. But that had been a very different shop to the one he was in now. There were no security guards here, for one thing. No one to accuse him of doing anything he hadn’t. He bit his lip and looked around nervously, wondering whether he should go back outside and continue on to the next village, but before he could do this he became distracted by the sounds that were coming his way.
    Footsteps.
    Heavy, slow footsteps.
    He held his breath and listened carefully, narrowing his eyes as if it might allow him to hear a little better, and for a moment the footsteps seemed to stop. He breathed a sigh of relief, but before he could turn round, they started again and he froze where he was, trying to identify exactly where they were coming from.
    Beneath me!
he thought, looking down.
    And sure enough, there was the sound offootsteps ascending from below the shop, the pounding beat of heavy boots slowly climbing a staircase, each one getting a little closer to where he stood. He looked around to see whether anyone else could hear them, but realized that he was entirely alone; until now he hadn’t even been aware that he was the only person in the shop.
    Excluding the puppets, that is.
    ‘Hello?’ whispered Noah nervously, his voice echoing a little around him. ‘Hello, is anyone there?’
    The footsteps stopped, started, hesitated, stopped, continued, and then grew louder and louder.
    ‘Hello?’ he said again, raising his voice now as every nerve in his body grew more and more tense. He swallowed, and wondered why he felt this curious mixture of fear and safety at the same time. This wasn’t like the time he got lost in the woods overnight and his parents had to come and find him before the wolves ate him – now
that
was scary. And it wasn’t like the afternoon he got