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home.
    She was not aware of anyone’s approach until a voice behind her said, “What’s up with you, then, Mary Dyer?”
    Mary looked round, trying to control the trembling of her chin.
    She saw a boy – a rough-looking boy, dark haired and dark eyed, with a bruise on one cheekbone and an air rifle over his shoulder. He was swarthy with a darkness that was more dirt than nature and he wore a ragged shirt and trousers and shoes that had split open at the sides.
    Arnold Revell. Just about the last person Mary could have wanted to meet.

CHAPTER FIVE
    All the girls shrank from Arnold Revell.
    “He smells,” Doris Brown would say, wrinkling her little nose. And it was true that a fusty, unwashed odour, sometimes mixed with a rank smell of goat, emanated from the corner where Arnold sat at the back of the class. His nails were usually black and his neck grimy. He was not exactly badly behaved, but school didn’t interest him and he brought an air of disorder into the classroom.
    Further down the school were more Revells. Nearly every class had one. Arnold was the eldest. He had been kept back at least a year because he was so slow, and he was bigger and older than everyone else in his class. The Revells lived on a smallholding and scrap-yard on the edge of town out beyond the railway station. Whenever there was petty thieving, scrumping or fights, the Revells were blamed.
    Mary sniffed back her tears and steadied her chin. She didn’t want to cry in front of Arnold Revell. Had it been Olive, or, better still, Phyl, she would have burst into tears again and enjoyed their sympathy. But not a boy, especially this boy.
    “I heard shooting,” said Arnold. He looked at the pigeon basket. “Someone shoot your birds?”
    “Yes,” said Mary. She picked up the basket, but it seemed rude to turn her back on him and go, so she explained about the peas and how angry the farmer had been.
    “I heard the shooting and dived into the hedge,” said Arnold. “Best keep out the way, I thought. Don’t get on with farmers, see. Course, if I’d known it was you,” he added gallantly, “I’d have come out and had a go at the bugger.”
    Mary thought it was just as well he hadn’t.
    She began climbing over the stile, hampered by the basket. Arnold took it from her, then swung himself over with practised ease. Mary thought how much better he fitted into the countryside than he did into the classroom. There, he looked stupid and clumsy; here, he seemed to belong.
    “Going home?” asked Arnold.
    “Yes.” Mary didn’t want him walking along beside her, but the footpath was bordered by hedges and there was nowhere else to go.
    “What were you doing back there?” she asked.
    Arnold shrugged. “Nothing much. Looking around, like. Get a few rabbits sometimes.”
    The thought of meat made Mary aware of how hungry she was.
    “How many of your pigeons got shot?” asked Arnold.
    “One at least. Maybe two.”
    “Pity he stopped you getting them. Makes a good meal, a couple of pigeons. Nice with a bit of gravy.”
    Mary wondered how many racing pigeons Arnold had shot in his time; she doubted whether he would make much distinction between ringed ones and wild ones.
    “Mum might have forgiven me if I’d brought them back,” she agreed. She explained to Arnold what she had done. Arnold did not seem shocked about the Sunday flying, or about not going to chapel; the Revells rarely attended, and when they did nobody sat near them.
    “I’m scared to go home,” confessed Mary.
    “Come to our place, then. Got some stew. Chicken.”
    “Wouldn’t your mum mind?”
    “Mum? She’s took off again. There’s only Dad and the little ’uns.”
    Mary thought of chicken stew and was tempted. After all, Arnold seemed all right. But the Revells had such a bad reputation in the town; she wasn’t sure she ought to go there. And if Mum found out… I’m in enough trouble already, Mary thought. Besides, there were the pigeons; she had to see if