Street Child Read Online Free PDF

morning Mr Barrack told the boys to get out their instruments, and with a great shoving of desks and scuffle of boots they ran to the big cupboards at the end of the room, only to be shouted at and made to do it all again in silence.
    ‘I’d have got hit anyway,’ Tip muttered to Jim under the noise. His eyes were still wet.
    ‘Did it hurt?’ Jim asked him.
    Tip shook his head. ‘Once Barrack starts hitting you, Barrack always hits you,’ he said. He blew his hand and stuck it back under his armpit. ‘Every day if he can. Just don’t let him have a chance to start. Tell Barrack Tip did it, if he blames you for anything. Tip’ll get hit anyway, so you might as well.’
    A drum was placed on the desk for them to share, and Tip stood up and reached out for a stick. At a wave of the schoolmaster’s hand the hymn tune started, such a thumping and wailing that the washerwomen ran out with their hands over their ears. It was like nothing Jim had ever heard before. Tip poked him with a drumstick and mouthed at him over the row to bang the other side of the drum withit. Jim just tapped it at first. He watched Tip to try to work out some kind of rhythm in the mess of noise, and he saw that all the boys seemed to be chanting something, the little black holes of their mouths opening and closing into the thunder of drums and whistles, while the candle flames flattened and danced like tiny white devils.
    ‘What’re you saying?’ Jim shouted, as close to Tip’s ear as he could get. Tip turned towards him.
    ‘I hate this place!’ Jim could hear Tip’s voice, faint and wailing over the beating of his drum. He had his eyes shut. He thumped the drum in time to every word. ‘I hate this place! Bang bang bang bang.’
    ‘So do I,’ said Jim. ‘Bang bang bang.’ He closed his eyes and put his head back. He shouted into the darkness, opening up his throat to let all the tightness out. ‘I want Dad. I want Ma. Bang bang bang. I want Emily. Bang bang bang. I want Liz. Bang bang bang-bang bang ! I want to go home. ’
    Mr Barrack raised his hand and the sound stopped as if it had been torn away in shreds. Silence, utter, swirling, hugging silence. Jim felt his thoughts tumbling into it and then settling into calm. He felt better.

7
The Wild Thing
    ‘Joseph,’ Jim asked the bent man one day out in the yard. ‘How long have you been here?’
    ‘Been here?’ Joseph swung his head round and peered up at Jim. ‘Seems like I was born here. Don’t know nowhere else, son. And I don’t know all of this place, neither.’ He leaned against Jim so he could swing his head up to look at the long, high building with its rows of barred windows. ‘I’ve not been in the room where the women go, though long ago I must have been in the baby-room, I suppose, with my ma. I’ve been in the infirmary wards. But there’s all kinds of little twisty corridors and attics and places I’ve never been in, Jim, and I don’t want to, neither. It’s the whole world, this place is.’ He spread out his hands. ‘Whole world.’
    ‘It ain’t, Joseph,’ Jim told him. ‘There’s no shops here, and no carriages. And no trees.’ He closed his eyes, forcing himself to try and remember what it was like outside. ‘And there’s no river. There’s a great big river outside here.’
    ‘Is there, now?’ said Joseph. ‘I should like to see that river. Though to tell you truth, Jim, I don’tknow what a river is. Tell you something.’ He put his arm over Jim’s shoulder to draw his ear closer to his own mouth. ‘I don’t want to die in here. If someone will let me know what day I’m going to die, I’ll be grateful. I’ll climb over that wall first.’ He dropped his head down again and stared at his boots, whistling softly. ‘Yes. That’s what I’ll do.’
    Tip spluttered and nudged Jim, but Jim was looking up at the high walls that surrounded the workhouse, and at the bleak sky above it.
    ‘How long have I been here, Tip?’ he