A Postillion Struck by Lightning Read Online Free Page A

laughing and I felt Alice McWhirter moving along towards me. She was wearing a sort of velvet dress, and her legs were bare and scratched, and her glasses shone in the lights and all the dodgem cars were reflected in them as she peered up at me. She really was frightfully ugly.
    â€œHello,” she said, and smiled.
    â€œHello,” I said politely, but coldly to show her I had not forgotten the orangeade part.
    â€œReg is on number four,” she said, indicating the car with a nod of her head. “I wouldn’t go on, I’m too scared.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    â€œI’ve got sevenpence and I’m saving it for one go on the swings and one go on the horses, only I want a cockerel,” she said, edging closer.
    â€œI’ve got two shillings,” I said in a pompous voice, “and I’m going to spend it all on rolling pennies.”
    She looked amazed. “TWO shillings! What do you want to win?” she asked, her nasty little claw-like hand clutching the dodgem rail.
    â€œThat’s my affair, I wouldn’t tell you,” I said, and I was just moving away when she grabbed my arm with her horrible little hand and cried: “Look what Reg won at the rolling.” And there, in her right hand, which had been hidden behind her velvet skirt, hanging in the air between us, was a little wooden cage with a canary fluttering and beating against the wires. “Isn’t he beautiful!” she cried. “Reg got it for four rolls!”
    My heart was thudding, my mouth dry, the little cage bobbed and wobbled in her outstretched hand between us. The thing I had most longed for was in the grasp of ghastly Alice McWhirter, and Reg Fluke had got it in four rolls.
    â€œIt’s very pretty,” I said. “But the cage is too small.”
    Alice McWhirter laughed a scornful laugh. “We’re going to make it a bigger one, in our garden, out of an old orange box. I know where the wire is, and we’ll put in twigs and grass and things. This,” she laughed, swinging it disdainfully above her head and frightening the bird out of its wits, “is only for fairs and travelling and that. You couldn’t put them all in orange boxes!”
    And then Reg Fluke was clambering over the rail, his face smiling and country-looking, and red and shiny.
    â€œShowing you my sparrer, is she?” he asked, pulling out a dirty handkerchief and wiping his forehead. “Cost me four rolls, that did… and this,” he indicated the dodgems with a jab of his head backward, “cost me sixpence and that’s me skint.”
    Alice McWhirter wagged the cage about in front of my stiff face. “I’ve got sevenpence you can share,” she said.
    â€œCoconuts is sixpence for four balls,” said Reg. “What’ll you do with a penny? Save it for a pee?” He roared with laughter, and Alice McWhirter smirked away. Funny how pee kept coming up with her.
    â€œI’ll give you one shilling in coppers for it,” I said, blurting it all out. The music was very loud, the cars banging and crashing into each other. Reg’s jaw was stuck open with surprise. “How much?”
    â€œOne shilling,” I said very loudly indeed, “in coppers.”
    â€œFor a sparrer?”
    Reg took the cage from the clutching hand of Alice McWhirterand peered into it. The canary skittered about again, and a feather fell out.
    He handed it solemnly over to me. “Where’s the bob, then?” He crammed the pennies into both his pockets, and with a wink to Alice McWhirter he pulled her off into the crowds.
    My heart bursting, my face red, the cage pressed close to my chest, I shoved and pushed through the people until I caught sight, over the heads in front of me, of Mrs Jane’s black hat.
    â€œGreat Heavens!” she cried, seeing me. “You got one! Well I declare. Lally…” she turned and cried above the music…