Conquering Kilmarni Read Online Free Page A

with some other money me been saving, to run away with when me have enough saved up."
    "You're planning to run away?" Peter was not only astonished, but suddenly sad.
    He needed a friend. Mark and he had never known any of the village kids well—mostly because they'd gone to school in another parish, but also because they lived on the plantation, which the local people didn't think of as belonging to the village. "Where will you go?" he asked softly.
    "Kingston." There was only one Kingston in Jamaica, the island's capital city. "Me can get a job there, and go to school."
    "You say you have some other money saved up. How'd you earn that?"
    "Me have a secret garden."
    "A what?"
    "A secret garden up in the high bush," Zackie said proudly. "Never mind where. Me not telling nobody, not even you. But me been growing things there to sell to higglers—things like yams and scallions and carrots." By higglers he meant people, mostly women, who bought from farmers, then sold in the marketplace. Some carried what they bought to markets in Kingston.
    "So," Peter said slowly, "you don't run wild in the bush, like Miss Lorrie said."
    "Run wild?" Zackie shook his head. "Uh-uh. Me work!"
    "And that's why you won't go to school?"
    "What time me have for school, huh? Tell me that! If me don't work to earn money, me and me daddy would both hungry. Even worse could happen to him, if him don't eat whilst drinking like him do all the time. So . . ." Shaking his head, Zackie pushed himself to his feet.
    "So we take the pig to Miss Lorrie's," Peter finished. "Okay, let's go."
    It took them about twenty minutes to reach Lorraine Crosdale's house, and they met no one on the way. The house was like most of the others in the village, with plastered wattle walls and a zinc roof. Peter had seen such places being built by the people themselves and understood now why they all seemed a little crooked. It was because the saplings they were framed with were not very straight. Still, most of them were sturdy and attractive.
    Lorraine Crosdale had not yet come home from work, but Zackie knew what to do. With his dog trotting at his heels, he hurried to the end of the yard and came back with some broad green leaves pulled from a banana plant. These he placed on the concrete floor of her kitchen, which was a small separate building in the yard. Then, after he and Peter had laid the pig down on the leaves, Zackie went for more with which to cover it.
    "We should have a crocus bag, Peter. Here are some!"   From a little pile in a corner he lifted two burlap bags and spread them over the pig to protect it.
    "Don't we have to cut this pig up?" Peter asked. "I heard you tell my dad—"
    "Miss Lorrie will get her brother Aubrey to do it. Him is a butcher. Come!" Zackie got up from his knees and turned to the door. "We must go to my house now to see if me father is all right. Then me will walk back up to your house with you."
    With Zackie again leading the way, the two boys went on down the village path. The houses were far apart, and the lamps burning inside them transformed some of the windows into yellow eyes. Peter had a spooky feeling they really were eyes and were watching. After a few minutes Zackie turned to the left along a narrow side path.
    At first there seemed to be no houses on this one, only thick bush on both sides. Then suddenly a single light was visible in a clump of big trees, and Zackie stopped.
    "Him is home, Peter. Me thinking you should wait here whilst me see if him is sober."
    "If he's drunk, you'll need help, won't you?" Peter argued.
    "All right."
    The light was from an open doorway, and they approached it side by side. The house was much smaller than Miss Lorrie's, Peter saw at once. The front of it didn't have any windows, which was why there was only the one rectangle of light. Following Zackie over the threshold, Peter saw a table with a smoky oil lamp on it. On the floor behind that were two old, stained mattresses, on one of which lay