Promise Me This Read Online Free PDF Page A

his belly.
    Michael spied the sign of a fish-and-chips shop in the next block. He waited. No dog cried the alarm. Michael’s tongue ran over chapped lips. His mouth watered at the thought of fried-fish grease soaked into the pages of newsprint wrappers. If lucky, he’d find bits, remnants stuck to the paper, crumpled in the dustbin. Fish heads weren’t to everyone’s liking, Michael knew, but he’d seen the wharf rats eat them, and they surely thrived. It could keep him in body for another day. But even those pickings ran slim this morning.
    Michael’s stomach rumbled, angry at the waking that offered no real satisfaction. Cold and hungry as he was, he was more than weary after two nights of half waking, half sleeping, ever dodging and fearing discovery.
    Farther into town Michael came upon a stone building. The morning light showed the garden torn apart, bricks and flagstones askew, tarps strewn over building and gardening supplies. Small shrubs, draped, stood sentinel against the stone wall.
    Michael blew on his hands to warm them, stomped his feet to feel his toes. He pulled the tarps from the shrubs, thinking they couldn’t be as cold as he, and dragged one over wooden planks. Stretched along the plank bed, Michael pulled his thin coat tight about his aching ribs, wound himself head to toe inside the second tarp, and sank into a deep sleep.

Michael dreamed again of Megan Marie—of soft black ringlets framing her pale face, her wide blue orbs growing wider still as they stood alone on the dock, nearly swamped in the early-morning fog. Her small fingers curled around Michael’s larger ones, warm and trusting, and he wrapped his arm around his sister.
    And then Jack Deegan and Uncle Tom stumbled toward them, down the thudding planks, arguing, deep in their cups. Someone else—a man with a tall black hat and coat and a silver stick—walked up to Megan Marie and Michael. He twisted their faces first one way and then another. He frowned and narrowed his eyes. When he let them go, Megan Marie clung harder to Michael, whimpering, her face buried in his sleeve. The man pulled from his pocket the biggest wad of pound notes Michael had ever seen and shoved them into Jack Deegan’s hands. Then he knelt before Megan Marie and Michael with a peppermint stick in each hand, holding one close to draw Megan Marie near him and extending the other to keep Michael at arm’s length.
    Hungry, they were both so hungry. Megan Marie let go of Michael’s sleeve to reach for the peppermint stick, but Michael did not notice, for he reached toward the other. In a sudden swoop the man lifted Megan Marie from the dock, and Uncle Tom raised Michael by his collar, his feet dangling in the air, and punched him in the stomach.
    Megan Marie screamed Michael’s name, but all Michael could see was the back of the stranger’s cape, running, running down the dock, Megan Marie’s small hand raised in her pleas. “Michael! Michael!”
    Michael squirmed, bit Uncle Tom, and dropped to the dock. But before he could race after Megan Marie, Jack Deegan lifted him by his britches and threadbare coat and threw him into the sea. Michael thrashed and thrashed, not knowing how to swim, and all the while the cries of Megan Marie pierced his soul.
    And then he was lifted, lifted, and tumbled again. Only he wasn’t fighting, scrabbling against the water; he was clawing the bare, hard ground.
    Gasping, still half-asleep, Michael sprang to his feet and staggered backward, covering his face with his arm to stave off the beating.
    “Whoa, lad! Whoa!” A man reached for Michael, but Michael tripped and fell.
    Now fully awake, he scrambled, crab-walking backward. “Leave her! Leave her alone!” Michael shouted.
    The man before him stepped back, raising his hands, surely as astonished as Michael himself. “Leave who? You’re caught in the dreaming, lad.”
    Michael’s chest heaved. He couldn’t get his breath or stop his heart from pounding against his