Uchenna's Apples Read Online Free PDF Page A

can’t—”
    “Shouldn’t we tell her where we’re going?” Emer whispered as they headed down the driveway.
    “Why? She wants me, she’ll call,” Uchenna said. “They haven’t decided what they want to do yet. And it’s not like we can’t be back in ten minutes. Now—which way should we go?”
    Emer glanced around. “Follow me,” she said.

2: In The Field

    It wasn’t that Uchenna couldn’t think of a way to get where they were going. The space beyond the concrete walls at the back of the developed properties was full of little paths worn through the crabgrass, leading to places where the hedgerows of the older fields still traced a maze of lines drawn in thorny greenery across the landscape. Every kid who lived in this part of Adamstown knew at least three or four different ways to leave the house and get around the developments with varying levels of speed or difficulty, and with or without being seen. But personal preference was also an issue, and since Emer knew where she was going, Uchenna was willing to believe she knew the best way to get there. Now Emer led her out of Uchenna’s circle the way they’d come, angled over toward the next circle of houses on the north side, and there took a narrow dirt path just to the right of the house that was nearest the spot where the three circles touched. That path went between the little patch of grass where the boulder with the circle’s name on it stood and the wall of the nearest house, one of the few in the circle that was empty at the moment.
    At the end of the path was a gap between the house’s side wall and the wall that defined the edge of the next development along. Emer and Uchenna slipped down between these walls, watching where they walked, because the hard dirt of the path was littered with junk: stomped-on energy drink cans, broken vodka bottles. At the far end of the path Emer paused, waving a hand back at Uchenna for her to wait while Emer stuck her head around the corner and had a look around. Then she glanced back at Uchenna. “It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t see anybody. Come on—”
    They headed out into the open space, staying on the path close to the wall that shut away the next part of the Adamstown development on their right. To their left was a wide landscape of green patches of field hemmed in by uneven hedges, with a long line of high-tension towers striding along from north to south about half a mile away. Even at this distance you could hear the whining of the wind in those big wires, a faint noise that fought successfully with the lower, rushing sound of the nearby N7 motorway as the traffic tore along it towards Naas. In the late afternoon sky, the black bird-shapes of rooks wheeled and dipped in the wind, playing with the air and making distant metallic gronking noises.
    They went along at a fast walk for about five minutes before one of the hedges in front of them ran directly into the wall to their right, actually growing up against it somewhat now. Here Emer waved Uchenna off to the left, and they followed the hedge to a place where there was a hole in it big enough for them to creep through. “Watch the thorns—” Emer said, ducking through the hole.
    I should have changed first…! Uchenna thought: she was not going to get through that hole as easily as Emer. But she pushed the apple bag through the hole, then grabbed her skirt with both hands and tightened it around her before she slipped herself into the gap in the hedge. The spikes and spines of the hawthorn bushes that made up the hedge grazed Uchenna in a few places, and she sucked in breath as one of them dug hard into her arm as she came out on the other side.
    “You okay?” Emer said as Uchenna straightened up.
    “It got me a little,” Uchenna said, brushing at the scratch on her arm. “Not bad. Come on.”
    Past the hedge, it was easier to see the developments further on. The trampled-down path angled away from the wall on the right, where the