The Quickening of Tom Turnpike (The Talltrees Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF

stick, which looked about the size of a cricket bat.
    Just
as Freddie reached out to release his shoelace, Vanderpump kicked him brutally
in the ribs.  Freddie cried out, his back arched in pain.
    “You’re
howling like a woman,” mocked Vanderpump.  “And where’s your little friend,
Turnpike, eh?  Turn coat , more like!”  He was pleased with this.  “Turned
tail and left you like the coward he is, I shouldn’t wonder.  What would you
expect from the son of a traitor ?”
    This
last word he spat as if it tasted foul in his mouth.  I was used to hearing
things like this about my father and I didn’t care a jot.  It was only ever
from the boys whose fathers were active Party members. I tended not to like
them much anyway. 
    Vanderpump
then raised his makeshift club above his head, ready to bludgeon Freddie’s
legs.  I scrabbled around in the mud for something to throw at him and my hand
fell upon something hard and jagged.  A hefty lump of flint.
    I
stood awkwardly.  “Oy, Vanderpump!”  I shouted.  He turned briefly and snorted
indignantly as Freddie continued to struggle with his bootlace.  Then, just as
Freddie had freed his foot and Vanderpump turned back to bring his cudgel down
on him, I launched the stone as hard as I could.
    I
was a terrible shot, always had been, and this rock could really have ended up
anywhere.  But incredibly, amazingly, it made such sweet and heavy, thudding
contact with the back of Vanderpump’s head that he stumbled forwards, tripped
over Freddie, who was now struggling to his feet, and landed on his face in the
dirt, dazed and bloody.
    “Come
on, Fred,” I shouted.  “This way.”
    Vanderpump
would be after us with a vengeance and there was nowhere left to hide.  But we
had one trick left. 
    The
bell started to toll in the distance, but that would not stop him.  Freddie and
I ran as quickly as we could, forgetting our injuries in the excitement, along
a narrow deer-track towards the London Ride, the main path that led back to the
school.
    Vanderpump
was bawling after us now.  “You two are dead!  Dead !”  His heavy
footfalls were bearing down upon us.
    “There
it is,” I puffed to Freddie, pointing a few yards ahead of me to a particular
patch of mud and scrub on the track.  We leapt over it, one after the other,
hoping that Vanderpump, in his anger, would not notice.  We kept running, but,
just before we reached the London Ride, Freddie grabbed me by the arm.  We
stopped and turned to watch.
    Vanderpump
was careering down the path after us.  “That’s right,” he shouted, waiving his
bludgeon in the air.  “You won’t get away from me, and when I get you, I’m
going to...”
    The
rest of his threat was swallowed in an instant.  That certain patch of mud and
scrub, which Freddie, Milo and I had prepared a week ago to cover a thin layer
of sticks and twigs, cracked and buckled under Vanderpump’s enormous weight. 
And the expression of dramatic bewilderment upon his face as he plummetted into
the hole that had taken us a full afternoon to dig, just as he completely
disappeared from view, was perfectly hilarious.
    Freddie
looked at me with blood crusting under his nose, and then burst out laughing.
    “Come
on,” I sniggered.  “Let’s get back.”

three
     
    Freddie
was vexed.
    “ Pathetic ! 
I can’t believe all four of the boys who got caught are Crusaders.  The
Colonel’s going to be seriously angry.”
    I
sniggered.  Freddie was a Crusader, Barrington was his Housemaster and always
took the Flucht very seriously.  My Housemaster, Caratacus, on the other hand,
had been delirious all afternoon; the Crusaders had won the House Competition
three years running, but now the house-points table showed that my house, the
Swallows, had just nosed ahead.
    “Well,”
Freddie continued, “at least the Colonel wasn’t there to see it.”
    It
was sunny in the late afternoon and that meant that all of the Juniors had to
be outside