The Special Ones Read Online Free PDF Page A

because I know what Harry will do next. In here, I am constantly losing things. Sometimes they turn up again, tucked away in the wrong cupboard or obscured behind some other object – but usually when things go, they go for good. It bothers me that I have become so absent-minded, especially when we have so few possessions. I am sure I used to be a lot more careful.
    Harry follows quickly. His sharing is about the lettuce crop, which has been poor so far this year. I long to jump to his defence and point out that the weather has been hotter and drier than usual but we’re forbidden to interrupt others sharing. ‘I could’ve done better,’ he keeps muttering.
    Harry’s sharings are always like this. He offers up things that either seem trivial or that he couldn’t rightfully be blamed for. He’ll say he took too many breaks, or that he didn’t work long enough hours, when to me it seems like he never stops working. He is so hard on himself, so hard that I wonder sometimes if it can possibly be genuine.
    After sharing comes the judgement. Whoever has committed the worst transgression will feel their guilt becoming heavier and heavier, until it pushes them down to the ground. But no matter how trivial Harry’s sharing appears, his guilt seems to push him to the ground before anyone else.
    It took me too long to realise what he was doing. Harry sinks first to protect the rest of us. Since I twigged to that, the sharings have become a slightly ridiculous competition between Harry and me to confess last, and to get to the ground first. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so awful.
    Sometimes I manage to beat him, but not tonight. Harry collapses to his knees the moment he’s finished sharing.
    ‘No, Harry!’ protests Felicity. ‘Not you again. It’s not fair!’
    ‘Shh!’ I warn her. Even in the middle of the night, he ’s watching. I doubt he ever sleeps.
    ‘But what I did was way worse than what Harry did,’ Felicity mutters. ‘What you did was worse, too.’
    ‘That’s enough, Felicity,’ I say sharply, so it doesn’t look like I’m indulging her. ‘Go and get the punishment wheel.’
    Felicity gives me an agonised look, which I meet with a stern stare until she runs to a wooden box on the mantelpiece, just below the Special Ones photograph. Inside it is a wooden disc with a pole through the middle. It looks like something from a children’s game.
    The disc has been engraved with lines, dividing it up like slices of cake, and on each slice is a different word. Whip. Knife. Tree. Cellar. Stove. Hunger. Work. There’s a tiny red arrow engraved into the central pole. Felicity hands me the wheel.
    ‘Thank you. Now return to bed, please,’ I say.
    I can tell she’s considering arguing, but I am determined that she won’t see this tonight. I fix her with a glare so fierce that she takes off. There’s the sound of her feet hurrying up the corridor, her door pushing back, and the creak of bedsprings. My mother used to tease that I couldn’t even scare a mouse. Those days are long gone.
    I hold the central pole steady on the floor in front of Harry, and spin the wheel. It rattles as it turns.
    Please stop on work, I beg the wheel. It often seems to land on this and Harry is used to hard labour. Or hunger .
    Going for a week on just flour and water is easy for Harry, especially as I usually sneak a little honey or fruit juice into the mixture.
    The wheel slows until finally it stops. I lean forward to see where the arrow is pointing. Whip. My ears sing, as if I’m about to pass out. It’s never stopped on this before.
    ‘Harry,’ I whisper, unable to help myself. ‘I can’t do that to you. I just can’t.’
    He lifts his bowed head for a brief moment. ‘That’s okay. I’ll do it myself.’
    Immediately, I regret being such a coward. I would have carried out the punishment on Harry far less harshly than he will on himself.
    ‘It’s okay, Esther,’ says Harry again. ‘Just get the whip for