Silent Noon Read Online Free PDF

afternoon. I’ll drop by this afternoon, shall I?”
    Krawiec did not reply. Swift watched him turn and lever the blade high over his head, swinging it through the long grass with a grunt. He waited until the groundsman had worked his way down half
the length of the meadow before clambering back over the stile and reeling back towards the school.
    ~
    Robin had warned him that he’d better be on his guard, and sure enough on Monday morning Barney was woken by four boys grabbing his wrists and ankles and hauling him out
of bed. It was Shields and Cowper on his legs, and twins from the adjoining dormitory on his arms. They must have woken early, as they were already dressed. Together they bundled him downstairs and
outside to the bin sheds, where Hughes was waiting with the lid of a compost box. The stench of rot – powdered eggs, potato peelings and fish heads – made the boys gasp as they lifted
him in.
    “The medicine, Hughes.”
    While Cowper held his head back, Shields squeezed Barney’s cheeks, forcing his mouth open. Hughes was holding what appeared to be a handful of small grey shells, and out of these he prised
slippery white globs that he forced into Barney’s mouth.
    “Swallow,” ordered Cowper, as Barney sputtered and gagged on the horrible living jellies. “You’ll do five minutes in here before we let you out.”
    There was no point in fighting them. Better to play possum. Barney closed his eyes against the darkness and covered his face with his hands while trying to breathe through his mouth. The limpets
had left a salty aftertaste, and he scraped his tongue with his fingernails to erase their slimy trail.
    It was hot inside the bin, as if all that decaying waste was oozing life, and his back soon turned wet with something that dripped down the sides. Outside, the others were standing guard,
pretending to play at a ball game while chanting a playground rhyme loud enough for him to hear.
    The worms crawl out and the worms crawl in,
    The ones that crawl in are lean and thin,
    The ones that crawl out are fat and stout,
    Be merry, friends, be merry!
    Mr Runcie’s voice summoned them to line up for breakfast, and there was a scuffle of feet. When he had begun to think that he must have been forgotten, Barney felt the bin
rock as someone wrestled with the lid. It was Robin.
    “Hurry up,” he hissed. “They’ve had their fun. You’ve got about a minute to get dressed before Runcie notices you’re not there.”
    Cowper was straightening his tie and smirking as Shields and Hughes play-fought their way into line. They were standing in front of the large bay window, where a movement behind the glass caught
Barney’s eye. It was the French master, Mr Swift, standing with his hands in his pockets, staring straight at him. He must have seen the others too – must have made the connection
between the boy picking the fish bones from his blazer and the crew of lads rough-housing not twenty yards away. He had seen and done nothing.
    Barney knew that there was still a nasty whiff trailing him as he fell in behind the others. Filing into breakfast, he tried to ignore the other boys’ delight at his humiliation and
deflected with a shrug the pitying looks from the masters.
    ~
    Eating a sandwich at the Formica table, Belinda watched the last of the Medlar boys tumble into school. The mullioned kitchen window was closed, and their voices were muffled as
they crossed the drive, the larger ones shoving their way through the doors ahead of the smaller lads when the masters weren’t looking. Boys, she thought. Where did all that energy come from?
And why did they expend it so stupidly?
    She prised her sandwich apart and drizzled a slow trickle of syrup until tiny rivulets slid from the crusts. When the trickle had slowed to a drip, she squeezed the bread between her fingers and
then took another bite.
    Belinda’s mother appeared in the kitchen doorway, head bristling with Toni perm curlers, just in time