Midnight Sun Read Online Free

little table," she said when he attempted to hand her the cup and saucer. "Go and be a good boy while I get up."
    Perhaps she wasn't fully awake, but the blurring of her voice unnerved him. "Are you all right, Auntie?"
    She placed one hand over her heart as if she was examining herself. "I hope I will be this time. But you must never upset me like you did yesterday, do you see?"
    "I won't ever," Ben said, and retreated to his room. If she died he would be wholly alone, and where would he have to go? He set about tidying his room to take his mind off the possibility, lining up his Dinky toys on the windowsill, one model car for each Christmas since he was three years old. They made him think of frost at the windows, sparks flying up the chimney as the wrapping-paper blazed.
    He carried the bundle of his books down to the front room. When he untied the string from around them the books seemed to expand with relief, the Hans Andersens his father had given him and the boys' adventure annuals his aunt had. Best of all, because it was still mysterious, was Edward Sterling's last book, Of the Midnight Sun.
    He had only begun to leaf through it when his aunt came downstairs. "Don't put too many books in my bookcase or you'll be making it lean. We don't want people thinking we bought our furniture off a cart, do we?" she said, and frowned at the book in his hands. "What's that musty old thing? You don't want that. It might have germs."
    Ben hugged it. "I do want it, Auntie. It's the book Great-Granddad wrote. Granddad gave it to me and said I should keep trying to read it until it made sense."
    "There's no sense in it, Ben. These books I gave you, they're the kind boys ought to read. There's nothing in that one except stories made up by people who had to have Edward Sterling write them down because they couldn't do it for themselves. Nasty fairy tales, like some of those Hans Andersens, only worse. They're from the same part of the world." She held out a hand which he noticed was shivering slightly. "Why don't you give me it to look after if it means so much to you? It can be a special kind of present to you when I think you're old enough."
    "Can't it be in the bookcase where I can see it? It makes me think of Granddaddy."
    His aunt was struggling with her emotions. "You'll have me thinking I shouldn't have wasted my money on buying you those books," she said, and blundered out of the room.
    By dinnertime she seemed more in control of herself. They had meat and vegetable stew as usual, the meal which she often told him was what a growing boy needed. As usual, it tasted blander than it had smelled, as though the tastes had drifted away on the air. He mimed enjoying it, and after a few mouthfuls he said, "I like you buying me books, Auntie. I do read them."
    "Do you truly? They weren't just my idea, you know. Your mother thought they would put your mind on the right track." She scooped a mush of vegetables onto her fork and looked up, balancing her cutlery on the edge of her plate. "Try to understand, Ben — this is hard for me too. It was one thing having you stay for a week every so often, but I never thought I'd be sharing my life with someone after I'd got used to living on my own, even with such a good boy as you. You mustn't think I'm complaining, but you'll give me time to get used to it, won't you? 1 know I can never replace your mother, but if there's anything within reason I can do to make you happier, don't be afraid to speak up."
    "Please may I have one of the photographs you brought from the house?"
    "Of course you may, Ben. Will you have one of you with your mother?"
    Ben chewed another mouthful, but that didn't keep his ques
 tion down. "Auntie, why didn't you like my dad and his
 family?" ,
    She closed her eyes as if his gaze was hurting her. "I'm being silly, Ben, you're right. I'll find you a photograph of all of you."
    "But why didn't you like them?"
    "Perhaps I'll tell you when you're older."
    He thought she was