The Night Ferry Read Online Free PDF

who were the most feared. Some regarded themselves as the true East Enders, as if there was some royal Cockney bloodline to be protected. The worst of them was Paul Donavon, a thug and a bul y, who fancied himself as a ladies’ man and as a footbal er. His best mate, Liam Bradley, was almost as bad. A head tal er, with a forehead that blazed with pimples, Bradley looked as if he scrubbed his face with a cheese grater instead of soap.
    New kids had to be initiated. Boys copped it the worst, of course, but girls weren’t immune, particularly the pretty ones. Donavon and Bradley were seventeen and they were always going to find Cate. Even at fourteen she had “potential” as the older boys would say, with ful lips and a J-Lo bottom that looked good in anything tight. It was the sort of bottom that men’s eyes fol ow instinctively. Men and boys and grandfathers.
    Donavon cornered her one day during fifth period. He was standing outside the headmaster’s office, awaiting punishment for some new misdemeanor. Cate was on a different errand
    —delivering a bundle of permission notes to the school secretary.
    Donavon saw her arrive in the admin corridor. She had to walk right past him. He fol owed her onto the stairs.
    “You don’t want to get lost,” he said, in a mocking tone, blocking her path. She stepped to one side. He mirrored her movements.
    “You got a sweet sweet arse. A peach. And beautiful skin. Let me see you walk up them stairs. Go on. I’l just stand here and you go right on ahead. Maybe you could hitch your skirt up a little. Show me that sweet sweet peach.”
    Cate tried to turn back but Donavon danced around her. He was always light on his feet. On the footbal field he played up front, ghosting past defenders, pul ing them inside and out.
    Big heavy fire doors with horizontal bars sealed off the stairwel . Sound echoed off the cold hard concrete but stayed inside. Cate couldn’t keep focused on his face without turning.
    “There’s a word for girls like you,” he said. “Girls that wear skirts like that. Girls that shake their arses like peaches on the trees.” Donavon put his arm around her shoulders and pressed his mouth against her ear. He pinned her arms above her head by the wrists, holding them in his fist. His other hand ran up her leg, under her skirt, pul ing her knickers aside. Two fingers found their way inside her, scraping dry skin.
    Cate didn’t come back to class. Mrs. Pulanski sent me to look for her. I found her in the girls’ toilets. Mascara stained her cheeks with black tears and it seemed like her eyes were melting. She wouldn’t tel me what happened at first. She took my hand and pressed it into her lap. Her dress was so short my fingers brushed her thigh.
    “Are you hurt?”
    Her shoulders shook.
    “Who hurt you?”
    Her knees were squeezed together. Locked tight. I looked at her face. Slowly I parted her knees. A smear of blood stained the whiteness of her cotton knickers.
    Something stretched inside me. It kept stretching until it was so thin it vibrated with my heart. My mother says I should never use the word “hate.” You should never hate anyone. I know she’s right but she lives in a sanitized Sikh-land.
    The bel sounded for lunchtime. Screams and laughter fil ed the playground, bouncing off the bare brick wal s and pitted asphalt. Donavon was on the southern edge in the quad, in the shadow of the big oak tree that had been carved with so many initials it should rightly have been dead.
    “Wel , what have we here,” he said, as I marched toward him. “A little yindoo.”
    “Look at her face,” said Bradley. “Looks like she’s gonna explode.”
    “Turkey thermometer just popped out her bum—she’s done.”
    It drew a laugh and Donavon enjoyed his moment. To his credit he must have recognized some danger because he didn’t take his eyes off me. By then I had stopped a yard in front of him. My head reached halfway up his chest. I didn’t think of his