Sabrina Fludde Read Online Free PDF

if embroidered for her especially, was the very name she’d chosen for herself:
    ABREN

St Chad’s crypt
    Abren didn’t need to put on her freshly ironed clothes in order to feel dressed. She had a name – and not one plucked out of thin air. A real name.
Abren
. She snuggled back down in the bed, clutching her little blanket as if she’d never let it go. She mightn’t know what she’d been doing on that river; mightn’t know where she came from, whether she had a family or a home. But she knew this much.
She was Abren
.
    Fee came downstairs and started making breakfast, singing to himself. Bentley clattered down to join him, all dressed up for school. How was Abren? he wanted to know. Had she slept? Was she all right? And, most importantly, was she going to stay with them?
    â€˜We could put her in the boxroom,’ he said, glancing at the figure in the sofa bed, pretending to be sleeping. ‘I’ve always wanted a brother or sister, and Mum’s always going on about needing women in the family, and—’
    â€˜Don’t be silly, Bentley. We’ve got to take her home,’ Fee said.
    â€˜But she hasn’t got a home!’
Bentley said.
    â€˜She must have someone somewhere, Bentley! She isn’t just a puppy we’ve picked up on the streets!’
    â€˜I don’t care what you say. I want her to stay!’
    The toaster popped and the kettle boiled. Fee went one way and Bentley the other, and only later did they return to the subject.
    â€˜She can’t stay,’ Fee said. ‘I’m sorry, Bentley. But you can’t just keep people like that! She’s someone’s child. She
has
to be. She has a home somewhere, and we’ve got to take her back. Either that or we’ll have to call the police!’
    They finished their breakfasts and Bentley left for school, pausing only to take a look at Abren, who was still pretending to be asleep.
    â€˜I’ll never speak to you or Mum again if you call the police!’
    Abren lay still until he’d gone, shortly followed by Fee. Then she leapt up, grabbed her clothes and pulled them on as fast as she could. She didn’t want to be the reason for Bentley’s family never speaking again. But she didn’t want them calling the police, and neither did she want them finding her family.
    Grabbing her embroidered blanket, she bolted down the stairs and out through the front door. For all her questions about herself, she didn’t know whether she wanted answers after all. None of them could tell her why she felt a stranger in her own body, or why everybody stared at her as if she were different, or why she couldn’t remember anything.
    Abren wandered round the town in a dull, strange daze. Every time she passed a newspaper hoarding she looked away. Yesterday she’d hoped to find a headline about a missing child, but not today. Every time a bus drove by she hoped its journey destination scroll wouldn’t ring a bell.
    As the day wore on, people started noticing a little girl who seemed to have nowhere to go. Shoppers turned and stared at her as she went by. News-sellers said that, yes, they’d seen her on Pride Hill severaltimes today – and yesterday as well, come to think of it. And, no, they didn’t know who she was.
    Feeling eyes following her wherever she went, Abren returned to the river. She rested in a shed, among a pile of tennis nets, until a class of schoolgirls and their teacher came along. Sheltered under a bandstand while a crowd of boys and girls flirted overhead, and even fell asleep down there until a dog chased her out.
    By now it was getting dark and she returned into town, skulking in alleys and hiding behind rubbish bins until the shops shut and the streets fell empty. Then, cold and hungry, she trailed through the main streets of the town, with no clear idea of where she was heading or what she should do. Drawing level with the market hall