The Sons of Adam Read Online Free PDF

to one of the roof joists and swung himself up.
    The roof space was narrow and only two and a half foot high at its highest. Boards lay loosely along the joists. Apart from some cobwebs and some rusty old garden tools, there was nothing up there. Nothing except Tom.
    Alan squirmed forwards to join his twin.
    ‘Hello,’ said Tom.
    Alan produced a paper packet containing bread, ham and cheese. ‘I’ve got apples in my pocket,’ he said.
    Tom took the gift in silence. His eye asked a question of Alan and, without needing any further explanation, Alan answered it.
    ‘There’s an awful fuss,’ he said. ‘They’re looking for you everywhere. Everyone’s sure you’ve gone to your dad’s house. He’s saying not, of course, but I made them think so by pretending to try to get in there when I thought no one was watching. Only they were. I made sure.’
    Tom nodded. Alan had done well. It hadn’t needed any secret signal to let Alan know his whereabouts. The two boys had maybe half a dozen favourite hiding places round the house and grounds. Alan had, by instinct, come first to the one where his twin lay hidden.
    ‘I won’t, you know,’ said Tom. ‘Not until …’
    ‘Yes, but he’s in an awful stew.’
    The two boys’ conversation was always like this: all but incomprehensible to an outsider. Tom meant that he wouldn’t return to Whitcombe House until Sir Adam made the concession over to him properly and for good. Alan doubted that that would happen.
    Tom looked at the other and grimaced. ‘I’ll be stuck here for ever then.’
    They both laughed.
    ‘And what about the Donkey?’ Tom made a braying noise and pretended to jump on Alan. They laughed a second time, but Alan was uncomfortable as he answered.
    ‘Guy got a terrific dressing-down. Father said he’d been told in confidence. Guy said he thought you already knew. I don’t know if Father believed him.’
    ‘He always does.’
    ‘Probably.’
    They slipped into silence for a while.
    ‘What’ll you do?’ asked Alan eventually.
    ‘Oh, I s’pose I’ll stay here for a day or two.’ Tom waved his hand airily round the tiny loft, as though it were an apartment he often rented for the summer.
    ‘Then what?’
    ‘It
is
my concession, you know.’ Tom rolled onto his elbow and looked directly at his twin.
    Alan nodded.
    ‘But it
is
.’
    ‘I know. I said yes, didn’t I?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I nodded. That’s the same.’
    ‘’Tisn’t.’
    ‘’Tis.’
    ‘Then say it. Go on then. Say it’s mine.’
    ‘Look, Father probably will give it in the end. It’s just Guy got him into a stew about it.’
    ‘There! See? You said he’ll give it in the end. He can’t do that, he’s already given it.’
    ‘Not with the legal bit as well,’ objected Alan. ‘I meant with the legal bit. I mean, I know it’s yours.’
    Tom stared hard at the other, little spots of red appearing high on his cheeks. Then he rolled away, staring out of the tiny cobwebbed pane of glass that was his only window.
    ‘Then I s’pose I’ll have to go to Dad’s place. I’m old enough now.’
    Tom didn’t spell out what he meant, but he didn’t have to. Alan understood. Tom meant that he’d go and live permanently with his father, away from Whitcombe House, away from Alan. The only thing that would stop him would be if Sir Adam backed down and made definite and permanent his gift of the concession.
    Alan swallowed. He pretended to be calm, and began poking at the cobwebs with a bit of twig, while kicking his feet against the low roof just above. But he wasn’t calm. Tom was threatening to leave. Tom was implying that a quarrel over property was more important than the two boys’ friendship. He scooped up a bit of cobweb that had an insect caught in it: trapped and dying.
    ‘Look.’
    ‘So?’
    Alan shrugged and scraped the insect off.
    ‘You know that vase?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Apparently it was worth tons of money. About a thousand guineas, I should think. It didn’t