The Blackhouse Read Online Free PDF

looked at my watch, trying not to seem concerned. “I’m going to be a bit late.”
    Marsaili nodded. “That’s what happens with shortcuts. They always make you late.” She smiled brightly. “You can come and play on Saturday morning if you want.”
    I pushed at a clump of turf with the toe of my welly and shrugged, playing it cool. “I’ll think about it.”
    â€œPlease yourself, then.” And she turned and skipped off down the track toward the big white farmhouse.
    I’ve never really been sure how I managed to find my way home that first day, because after Mealanais the road petered out to a stony track. I had been walking along it for some time with a growing sense of despair when I saw the top of a car flashing past along the near horizon. I ran up the slope and found myself on what must have been the Cross–Skigersta road that Marsaili had talked about. Looking both ways along it, the road seemed to disappear into the peatbog. I didn’t know which way to turn. I was scared and close to tears. Some guiding hand must have prompted me to go left, because if I had turned right I would never have got home.
    Even so, it was more than twenty minutes before I came to a turnoff where a crooked black-and-white signpost pointed uncertainly toward Crobost. I was running now, the tears burning my cheeks, the rims of my wellies rubbing my calves raw. I smelled the sea, and heard it before I saw it. And then as I came over the rise, there was the familiar silhouette of the Crobost Free Church looming over the disparate collection of houses and crofts that huddled around it on the cliff road.
    As I reached our house my mother was pulling up outside it in the Ford Anglia. Artair was in the back seat. She jumped out of the car and grabbed me as if I might blow away in the wind. But her relief turned quickly to anger.
    â€œFor God’s sake, Fionnlagh, where have you been? I’ve been up and down that road to the school twice looking for you. I’m just about demented.” She brushed away tears from my face as I tried to stop more of them leaking from my eyes. Artair had got out of the car and was standing watching with interest. My mother glanced at him. “Artair came looking for you after school and didn’t know where you were.”
    I gave him a look, and made a mental note that where girls were concerned he was not to be trusted.
    I said, “I walked the girl from Mealanais Farm home. I didn’t know it would take so long.”
    My mother was aghast. “Mealanais? Fionnlagh, what were you thinking? Don’t you ever do that again!”
    â€œBut Marsaili wants me to go and play there on Saturday morning.”
    â€œWell, I forbid it!” My mother had turned steely. “It’s far too far, and neither your father or me have the time to run you there and back. Do you understand?”
    I nodded, trying not to cry, and she suddenly took pity on me, giving me the warmest of hugs, soft lips brushing my burning cheeks. That was when I remembered the note that Mrs. Mackay had given me. I fumbled for it in my pocket and held it out.
    â€œWhat’s this?”
    â€œA note from the teacher.”
    My mother frowned and took it and ripped it open. I watched her face flush, and she folded it quickly and stuffed it in the pocket of her overalls. I never knew what the note said, but from that day on we only ever spoke English in the house.
    Artair and I walked to school the next morning. Artair’s dad had to go to Stornoway for some education meeting, and my mother was having a problem with one of her ewes. We walked most of the way in silence, battered by the wind, and in turn warmed by brief scraps of sunshine. The sea was throwing white tops over the sand on the beach below. We were nearly at the bottom of the hill when I said, “Why did you pretend to my mother you didn’t know I’d gone to Mealanais?”
    Artair puffed