I Am Margaret Read Online Free

deal with it. I kept seeing Bane, gripping those gates. My heart ached for him already and my head swam with fear. What might he do? Be careful , please, please be careful… you’ve got away with things before, but you wouldn’t get away with this .
    You can go to Bane, you know , I told my guardian angel. I really don’t mind. I always have the impression his angel needs all the help it can get … But Angel Margaret wasn’t going anywhere and a selfish part of me was glad. Just now, I was probably going to need all the spiritual help I could get.
    “I don’t think I’ve really met you properly,” Jonathan said, eventually breaking the silence. “I’m Jonathan Revan.”
    “Margaret Verrall. But you seem to know that already?”
    “Bane’s marvelous phone. Your voice is your ring tone.”
    “Huh. Didn’t know that. What a sneaky fiancé I have.”
    But I was neither offended nor surprised. Fiancé . The word felt right in my mouth and that warmth was back, thawing some more of the ice cube currently masquerading as my stomach. If only we’d had more time. If only I’d realized he didn’t realize… No, no if onlys. If onlys were a complete waste of time and as of half an hour ago my time had just become very precious.
    The minibus barreled along, following the railway up out of the valley of Salperton and into the Fellest. The scant winter snows were gone but spring hadn’t really begun. The ever-present mist shrouded the looming trees; shadowed the blood-soaked soil beneath them. Some of the simpler children— would-be adults —began to fidget, growing nervous, and Sarah reached across the aisle to pull on my sleeve.
    “Story? Story, Margy?”
    I sighed, drawn from my own thoughts.
    “All right. Does everyone want a story?” There was a chorus of assent. “Okay, then. This is a story about the Fells or as we now know it, the Fellest. Now, almost a hundred years ago, there was a farmer called Bill who kept sheep, and his parents before him kept sheep, and their parents before them kept sheep. He had a family and a black and white sheep dog called Rex. There were a lot of farmers like him on the Fells and on the day this story begins they all received a letter from the EuroGov.”
    Some of my captive audience hissed and booed. I shot a quick look at the sealed off cab, but the inspectors went on chatting amongst themselves, so if there were microphones, they weren’t switched on.
    “Bill’s letter said he had to accept a subsidy—that’s money—to have trees planted all over his land. Because the Fells were the place where the reForestation program—which was necessary to take all the carbon out of the air and save the planet—was to start.
    “ But no one in the world had any money, largely because they’d run out of oil. Not the USNA Bloc, the USSA Bloc, the African Free States, nobody. Certainly not the EuroBloc. Nor any jobs. Yet the EuroBloc offered Bill too little money to live on. So Bill can’t possibly accept this subsidy, can he? Not with a wife and four children.”
    “ Four! Four? Is he rich ?”
    “Yes, four, and no, he’s very poor, but people were allowed to have as many children as they wanted, in those days. Anyway, Bill says thanks, but I’ll keep my sheep. So does the EuroGov send another letter offering a fair price? No. They send a letter saying take the subsidy or else. In a much longer and more boring way, but that’s what the letter said. But can Bill take it?”
    “NO!”
    “No. The EuroGov is mad, he thinks, I’ll write to Parliament and get them to sort it out. So Bill and the other farmers write to Parliament.”
    “What’s Parliament, Margo?”
    “Parliament was a group of people who used to run the department back when it was an independent kingdom,” I explained. “All the adults would choose these people to run the country on behalf of the King.”
    “ Why didn’t he run it?”
    “ It was too much work for just him. Anyway, this was actually the