His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past Read Online Free Page A

grace and that saying prayers at this stage would probably bring the roof down on their heads. Marti didn’t want to damage the roof so he blew a little kiss to Mam and promised to be a good boy.
    He washed and dressed himself and tried to make his lunchbox up and then Jono, who lived out the back, appeared at the kitchen window. “Shhh, you’ll have to keep quiet. My mam’s not well,” said Marti.
    “Okay, is that why you’re so late today?” said Jono.
    “I’ve got to make my own lunchbox.”
    “I wish I could make mine. You could have heaps of choco.”
    “I don’t think we have any choco.”
    “Well what are you going to do? You can’t make a lunchbox with no choco, Marti.”
    He looked around the kitchen. He could see his Mam’s purse sitting up on the counter next to the empty biscuit barrel. He really wanted some choco now Jono had started on about it.
    “Jono, you’ve got to keep quiet about this,” he said, and started to reach for Mam’s purse.
    “Marti, what are you doing with that?”
    He opened the purse and took out a blue ten dollar bill. He had never held a ten dollar bill before and it felt strange to have it in his hands. “Wow, ten bucks…”
    “What are you gonna buy, Marti?”
    “Choco!” he said, and the two boys ran out the kitchen door.
    At the supermarket they filled their arms with choco bars and the counter woman looked at them like they were trouble. The most Marti had ever bought before was a big box of Froot Loops the time Mam had given him five dollars, and even then he had had to take the change back to her. When the counter woman leaned forward and asked him where the money had come from, Marti froze.
    “He’s buying for the whole week,” said Jono.
    The counter woman looked down at Jono and said, “Who’s pulling your strings, matey?” Then she started to ring up the money on the till and Marti and Jono smiled. When they got outside the boys started laughing and cramming the choco into their mouths until their cheeks were full and their teeth turned brown. It was a great laugh, thought Marti, watching the choco squelch about in their mouths, and then Jono said they had better run or they’d be late.
    School was all about Ned Kelly and his gang who were bushrangers, which was like outlaws, and they had armour made from ploughs like the kind they used to have in fields in the olden days. Marti liked the stories about Ned Kelly and his gang who went around robbing and shooting in the armour made from ploughs. He had heard all the stories about Ned Kelly and his gang from Dad, who said some people were down on poor old Ned.
    “But sure wasn’t that just because he had the good Irish blood in him,” said Dad, and hadn’t he seen the same himself. “No, Ned was just doing his bit. He was stopping the English getting the whip hand on this country, and isn’t there many a man would thank him they never did.”
    Jono told Marti he thought it would be great to be like Ned Kelly and his gang, robbing and shooting and wearing the armour made from ploughs. Marti agreed and they both said they would like to be like Ned Kelly, then Jono said, “Do you feel a bit like a bushranger after stealing the money from your mam’s purse?”
    Marti felt his head go all hot. “No,” he said. He knew he had been wrong to take the money and he knew he had eaten too many choco bars and now he didn’t feel very well at all.
    He still had four choco bars left, which would get him into trouble when he went home because Mam would say, “Where did you get them from, or do I not want to know?”
    He opened up the last of the choco bars and started cramming them into his mouth, one after the other. The first two were hard to eat and the third was beginning to hurt his jaws because he had to chew so fast. When he tried to swallow the third choco bar it wouldn’t go down at all, and then there was a funny feeling in his stomach that made him lean over and he was sick all over his jotter