Five Boys Read Online Free

thought Bobby capable of.
    “Anything else?” he said.
    Bobby was gravely aware that he had somehow forfeited one precious chance and might not be granted many more, so he paused and thought hard about the big fat lady in her tiny little shop.
    “I think,” he ventured, “she might have been sucking on a sweet.”
    The old man’s face lit up. He nodded. “That wouldn’t surprise me,” he said, then chuckled, and his hand shifted in his sleeping bag. “She’s always at them jars of sweets.”
    Bobby wondered briefly whether the old man’s interest in the lady at the post office wasn’t simply the appreciation of one person with a fondness for jars and bottles for another.
    “And what do you reckon she was sucking on?” the old man asked. “Did you happen to catch a whiff?”
    “I’m not sure,” said Bobby and saw all the hard-won warmth drain from the old man’s face. So he thought backto the woman tucking the sweet into a cheek as she leaned over the counter and asked Bobby if the old goat up the road had got him running his errands for him. “But it might have been cinder toffee,” he said.
    The old man gazed out of the window and nodded.
    “Could be,” he said. “She likes her cinder, does Marjory.”
    The old man’s thoughtful little interlude gave Bobby the opportunity to take a bite of his cake. He had never had a Bakewell tart before and was surprised (but not entirely disappointed) to find that it tasted quite like the treacle toffee he had had for his supper the night before.
    “What did you make of her?” the old man said.
    Bobby continued to chew with great deliberation, as if giving the question some thought.
    “… generally speaking,” the old man said.
    By the time Bobby finally got around to swallowing he still had no idea what reaction his answer was going to get.
    “I thought she was quite large,” he said and looked meaningfully out of the window, just as the old man had done a minute before.
    The shipbuilder beamed, recognizing a fellow after his own heart. He let out a deep sigh, accompanied by further activity in his sleeping bag.
    He nodded. “She’s a fair size, is she not?” he said.
    Bobby was again struck by how differently things were done down here: the days were shorter, the meals were sweeter, and speaking frankly about people’s size was quite acceptable. A year or two earlier he had made some quite innocent comment about a fat lady in the queue at the butcher’s and got a terrible telling-off from his mother on the way home—a recollection which stirred such strongemotions in him and brought such a significant lump to his throat that his mouthful of Bakewell tart couldn’t find a way past it and he began choking, which broke in on the old man’s reverie and had him worrying he might have to turn the boy upside down.
    Thankfully, this proved not to be necessary and when at last the food was heading in the right direction Bobby wiped the tears from his face.
    “Went down the wrong lung, that bit, didn’t it?” said the old man, but the boy kept staring at the floor.
    “Yes,” the old man said to himself. “She’s a fair old size, is Marjory Pye,” then looked over at his tray of tiny tools and slivers of wood and balls of thread and for a while talked abstractly about the perils of drilling a jib boom when you’ve got icing all over your fingertips.
    Bobby had just about recovered himself when the old man suddenly turned to him.
    “I don’t believe you’ve been introduced to the Captain, have you?” he said.
    Bobby wasn’t sure he was up to anymore introductions. He wanted to be back home, tucked up in his bed. And it was only when the old man got to his feet and held out the hand not holding up his sleeping bag that Bobby realized how the Captain and the old man with whom he was having his elevenses might be one and the same.
    Miss Minter was finding that, contrary to popular wisdom, Bobby’s being out of sight in no way constituted his being