The Night They Stormed Eureka Read Online Free PDF Page B

for answering questions, my Da. Didn’t think I’d never meet anyone else who knew about Socrates —’ he pronounced it correctly now ‘— ‘cept maybe the cove what sold the book. You know him?’
    Sam shook her head. ‘I just got here. Doesn’t your teacher know about Socrates?’
    The boy’s eyes blazed at her. ‘You tryin’ to be funny?’
    ‘I — I don’t understand …’
    ‘What sort of school takes the likes o’ me?’
    ‘I didn’t think. I’m not from around here, remember?’ she added.
    ‘Half-castes got schools where you comes from, do they?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Sam honestly. ‘But it’s a long way away,’ she added.
    ‘England, I suppose.’ He shrugged. ‘Fat lot o’ good that is to me. Ma taught me to read — she got taught by this old cove they called the Native Protector when she were young. Da can write his bleedin’ name, but that’s about it.’
    ‘But he bought you a book,’ said Sam softly.
    ‘Aye. He did that. I’m George,’ he added.
    ‘Sam.’ She hesitated, then held out her hand. Boys would shake hands with each other in these days, wouldn’t they? she thought, as George’s hand slipped into hers. It was bigger, and callused from work.
    ‘You don’t have any books, I suppose?’ George’s voice was a bit too casual as he began to throw potatoes into one of the sacks in the barrow.
    Sam shook her head.
    ‘But ye’ve been to school?’
    Sam nodded. ‘For,’ she calculated, ‘nine years now.’
    ‘Lucky b—blighter.’ He grinned in sudden friendship. ‘You’ll get on fine at the diggings, I reckon. Da brings me newspapers sometimes. There’s lots o’ coves with book learning there, all talking about democracy and stuff. Coves from California and Ireland and places with funny lingos where they tried to get rid of their kings. Da saysthat every man who backed a losing cause in Europe, trying to get rid o’ kings, has come to dig for gold instead.’ George threw another potato into the sack with greater force. ‘Wish Da’d let me go to the bleedin’ diggin’s. Bet I’d find a bleedin’ nugget big as a rat. But he says there’s more money in spuds than gold. How many sacks you want?’
    ‘Oh … the usual.’
    ‘Two then.’ He began to heft the sacks into the barrow. ‘Onions? Carrots?’
    ‘Er, yes.’
    George threw a few carrots and a big string of onions, tied together by their wilted tops, into the barrow too, then lifted its handles again.
    ‘If ye want to read my book ye can borrow it.’ The words came out in a rush, as though he was offering the greatest treasure of his life. ‘Just read it here, mind,’ he added hurriedly. ‘Next time ye come to get supplies. I don’t mean ye can take it away.’
    What sort of world was it where a book could be so precious? Sam had thought she knew about hunger. For the first time she had a glimpse of a hungry mind.
    ‘I’d like to read it,’ she said quietly. ‘We could talk about it, maybe.’
    ‘Mebbe.’ The hope in his expression in the dimness of the shed said more than words.

Chapter 6
    The afternoon shadows stretched blue fingers through the trees. Mr Puddleham pushed the wheelbarrow, filled with the sacks of potatoes and a bloody shape that looked like a whole sheep wrapped in red-stained sacking. Sam felt sick every time she glanced at it. Mrs Puddleham carried the food sack, now filled with carrots, as well as a bouquet of tough-looking stems and tiny green leaves, with a strange fragrance even stronger than the smells of unwashed clothes and dead sheep.
    Sam trudged next to them, the string of onions slung over her back, trying to enjoy the silence of the bush around them again, the flicker of light through the trees. She still didn’t have any idea where they were going.
    In movies there was always a newspaper blowing about so you could check the date. But there wasn’t even a breeze under the hush of gum trees, much less a tumbling newspaper. The gold rushes had lasted for