Secret Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

as Bleak Winters' had. He wanted to tell them this, he wanted to draw them away from Winters and toward the tent and the wasteland, but he didn't have the words.
    He hunched his back, moved on.
    “Get back to school!” Winters snapped. “Get back to school or you'll be lost in your own stupidity.”
    Joe listened to his larks.
    “Tomasso! Tomasso! Tomasso!” called the old man's voice, fading to almost nothing.

Ten
    Cody's crew were gone. Joe walked to the Cut. He crawled on the ground there: rubble, litter, dried-out mud, dog prints, cat prints, boot prints. He ran his fingers across the dried-out mud. No tiger prints. He sniffed the air. No tiger smell. Turned back again, circled the village, clambered over piles of heaped-up earth, over the ruins of old cottages, through the spaces where the swimming pools were supposed to come, the supermarkets, the car parks. Circled the great tent, avoided Bleak and his hangers-on. Saw Stanny miles away moving through the ruins of Broomstick Farm, more smoke streaming across him. Imagined having been a tiger, having been a trapeze artist. Watched the Silver Forest and the Golden Hills and the Black Bone Crags as he walked. “Tomasso, Tomasso” came faintly through the air. Clambered through the ruins of old terraced houses. Came to the Blessed Chapel. Fragments of gravestones lay embeddedin the earth around it. Fragments of words were written on what was left of the walls. Eroded by wind and rain, odd and ancient bits of prayers could still be deciphered:
    God … Blessed art … thy kingdom …In Loving Memory of …
    He knelt in the dirt and breathed the words passed down from children to children.
    “Spirits of earth and air, listen to my words this day.”
    He spat on his hands and wiped them slowly across the name of God.
    “Protect my mum this day.”
    He breathed deeply.
    “Let her heart be refreshed and let her life be lightened and let all harm and evil be lifted from her.”
    He took a five-pence coin from his pocket and dropped it through a narrow slot between the stones. It chinked into the space behind.
    He closed his eyes, searching for another prayer.
    “Protect the larks. Protect the tigers.”
    He touched the name of God again.
    “Our men,” he breathed. “Our men, our men.”
    He stayed there in the Blessed Chapel. Thick soft turf had grown on the ruined floor. He lay there, out of sight of Helmouth. He watched the sun slidingslowly through the sky, watched the summit of the blue tent shifting in the breeze. The gentle breeze flowed over him. He curled his knees up to his chest and slept, leaning on the blurred fragments of ancient prayers. In his dream he walked with Mum across the motorway and strode through the Silver Forest beneath a storm of larks. There were deer watching from the dappled shadows, owls from low branches, rabbits from dark entrances in the earth. She held his hand and they skipped toward the Black Bone Crags and their laughter echoed through the trees. Then his mum was replaced by another who walked lightly at his side. He was about to turn to her, to see her.
    He woke. Kids from Hangar's High were nearby. A bunch of boys kicked a ball and wrestled with each other. A couple of couples walked hand in hand. Dejected stragglers trailed knapsacks from their hands. Some cast their eyes across him, then turned away. He saw faces of a few who had been almost friends an age ago. A group of kids from Joe's year, from his class, approached. He crouched in the chapel, kept his head down, focused his mind on making them go away.
    “Alone, Maloney?”
    A girl's voice, laughing, mocking. Boys' voices joined in.
    “Alone, Maloney?”
    He crouched there, didn't move, like the rabbit that the weasel took.
    A rock bounced into the chapel, rolled to his ankle.
    Another came, accompanied by much laughter.
    “Let earth eat them,” he muttered to the earth. “Let fire take them.”
    “Only Maloney, lalalalalaaaaa!”
    Two boys prowled like tigers