The Boy at the Top of the Mountain Read Online Free PDF

then there was that horrible Englishman, Mr Dickens, who gave us all a bad name with his novels – but you can rest assured that nothing untoward goes on in our establishment. We run a happy house for all our boys and girls, and if there’s ever a moment when you feel frightened or alone, you simply have to come looking for either Simone or me, and we will be happy to help you. Won’t we, Simone?’
    ‘Adèle is usually quite easy to find,’ replied the older sister.
    ‘Where will I sleep?’ asked Pierrot. ‘Do I get my own room?’
    ‘Oh no,’ said Adèle. ‘Even Simone and I don’t have our own rooms. This isn’t the Palace of Versailles, you know! No, we have dormitories here. Separate dormitories for boys and girls, of course, so you don’t need to worry about that. They each have ten beds in them, although the room you’re going into is a little quiet at the moment so you’ll only be the seventh boy in there. You can take your pick of the empty beds. All we ask is that when you choose one, you stick with it. It makes everything easier on wash day. You’ll take a bath every Wednesday night, although’ – and here she leaned forward and sniffed the air a little – ‘it might be for the best if you take one this evening too, just to wash the dust of Paris and the filth of the train away. You’re a little ripe, dear. We rise at six-thirty, then there’s breakfast, school, lunch, a little more school, then games, dinner and bed. You’ll love it here, Pierrot, I’m sure you will. And we will do our very best to find a wonderful family for you. That’s the funny thing about this line of work, you see. We’re so happy to see you arrive but we’re even happier to see you leave. Isn’t that right, Simone?’
    ‘Yes,’ agreed Simone.
    Adèle stood up and invited Pierrot to follow her so she could show him around the orphanage, but as he walked towards the door, he noticed something sparkling inside a small glass cabinet and walked over to look at it. He pressed his face against the glass and squinted as he stared at a circle of bronze with a figure at its centre hanging from a strip of red and white striped fabric. A separate bronze bar was clipped to the material, inscribed with the words
Engagé Volontaire
. At the base of the cabinet stood a small candle and another photograph, a smaller one, of the man with the pencil moustache, smiling and waving from a train as it pulled out of a station. He recognized the platform immediately, for it was the same one where he had disembarked from the Paris train earlier in the day.
    ‘What’s that?’ asked Pierrot, pointing at the medal. ‘And who’s he?’
    ‘That has nothing to do with you,’ said Simone, standing up now, and Pierrot spun round, feeling a little nervous as he saw the serious expression on her face. ‘You are never to touch that or interfere with it in any way. Adèle, take him to his room. Now, please!’

C HAPTER T HREE
A Letter from a Friend and a Letter from a Stranger
    Things were not quite as wonderful in the orphanage as Adèle Durand had suggested. The beds were hard and the sheets were thin. When the food was plentiful it was usually tasteless, though when it was scarce it was usually good.
    Pierrot did his best to make friends, although it wasn’t easy when the other children knew each other so well and were wary of allowing newcomers into their groups. There were a few who liked reading, but they wouldn’t let Pierrot join their discussions because he hadn’t read the same books as they had. There were others who had spent months creating a miniature village from wood they’d gathered in the nearby forest, but they shook their heads and said that since Pierrot didn’t know the difference between a bevel and a block plane, they couldn’t allow him to ruin something they’d worked so hard on. A group of boys who played soccer in the grounds every afternoon, naming themselves after their favourite players in the French