The Red Road Read Online Free PDF Page B

to the boys already there that I would be sleeping in the
dorm with them that night. Should they need anything, they were to
tell me. If it was important, I should then tell him.
    I glanced around the dorm,
recognising only one of the faces there – Neil Booth, a second-year
Butcher boy who was almost as wide as he was tall. The other boys
were from the other houses. I had seen them around the school in
passing, though I couldn’t name any of them. Unknown to them, the
younger ones looked at me with some trepidation, in case I should be
one of those older boys with a quick temper; maybe even one of the
more violent ones from Tudor House. I wondered for how many of them
this was the first time they had lived away from home. Quite an
experience this was turning out to be for them.
    “I’ll be sleeping in my room
tonight, Joe,” Mr Somers said. “Mr Sutherland is sleeping in 1C
with some of the boys there, and the other boys are in 2D. Father
Matthew has also volunteered to sit up all night and keep watch.”
    All night? I knew that from
time to time some of the resident monks stayed up late, treading the
corridors of the main school until a little after midnight, but I’d
never known them to be up all night long. I imagined Father Matthew
would be patrolling the corridors with a lantern, much like the
teachers did whenever we had a power cut. I had seen a significant
number of those oil lamps during the Great Storm of 1987.
    “If any of you need to use the
toilet in the middle of the night, please could you let Joe know, and
he’ll walk you there,” Mr Somers said. “Even you, Neil,” he
added to the rotund boy.
    “Yes, sir,” came a little chorus
from the boys.
    A little extreme, I thought, as I
bundled up the current dorm prefect’s duvet and pillow and set them
on top of the linen pile in the corner. I didn’t have time to
remove the bed sheet itself; I just had to hope that it was clean.
    “I’m going to lock the front and
rear doors,” Mr Somers said. “I’ll unlock them tomorrow
morning, and then we’ll all go down to breakfast together. Okay,
it’s past ten, so lights out.” He clicked off the light switch
and closed the door.
    The dorm remained as silent as it
had been when I entered. I guessed the other boys just wanted to go
to sleep and get the night over with. Good idea. I decided to join
them.

    ~ ~ ~

    “Prefect ...”
    The pitch of the voice told me that
it was one of the first years.
    “Hmm?” I murmured. I was a light
sleeper, easily woken. Half-expecting to be called upon in the middle
of the night, I had clearly been sleeping far shallower than most
other times. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
    “I need to go to the toilet,”
the boy replied.
    “Okay, so go,” I said.
    “We were told not to go on our
own,” he apologised.
    Damn, that was true. “Do you
really need me to go with you?” I asked. I kept my voice even so as
not to come across as irritated.
    “I don’t know where they are.
I’m from Enfield.”
    “Ah.”
    “Do you mind?”
    “No. Let’s go.” I started to
get out of bed, seeing the silhouetted form of the other boy as he
pushed aside his covers. “Who else is awake?” I asked generally
of the dorm in a hushed voice.
    “Me,” came another voice.
    “Who’s that?” I said.
    “Neil.”
    “Do you need to go to the toilet,
too?”
    “No. I just can’t sleep.”
    “Okay. Anyone else awake?”
    No answer.
    “Will you be all right for a bit?”
I asked Neil.
    “Sure,” he said.
    “Cool. I’ll be back in a bit.”
    I left the dorm with the first year,
and we began making our way towards the toilets. The corridor was
near pitch black, save for a little light filtering in from
irregularly sized and spaced windows along the way. They didn’t
help much, though; the sky must have been quite cloudy. Out here, in
the middle of the countryside, it could be difficult to see at night. I
fumbled around for the light switch.
    “Shit,” I said.
    “What’s