Peach Read Online Free Page B

it surely must be important to take so long.
    The door opened suddenly and the sound of voices and the high, amused laugh of a woman came from inside. Noel stiffened.
That wasn’t Mrs Grenfell’s laugh
. Slipping from the bench, he half-ran, half-slid along the corridor and around the corner, peering cautiously at the door. As he watched, Luke backed out calling goodbye to someone inside, giving them a cheery wave of the hand. He wore his widest grin as he turned and sauntered down the corridor towards Noel.
    “Luke.” Noel caught his arm as he went by.
    “Oh. Hi.” Luke continued on his way as if not remembering that he’d asked Noel to wait.
    “What happened?” demanded Noel. “Did you get into trouble?”
    “For what? I haven’t done anything bad.”
    Before Luke had answered Mrs Grenfell’s sudden summons the two of them had run hastily through Luke’s possible crimes, and now he had forgotten. Noel hurried alongside his friend, trying to match his easy, loping stride. “Then what?” he asked. “Why did she want to see you?”
    Luke shrugged. “Just visitors, wanting to see some of the kids I guess.”
    Noel frowned. Visitors were few and far between. Occasionally an older couple would come and they might take away a girl baby, wrapped in soft, new pink blankets. Butfolks rarely asked to see growing boys like them. They were just charity orphans. Noel’s steps slowed as he thought about it. He ran to catch Luke’s jaunty figure as he leapt down the worn stone steps.
    In the backyard of flattened, grassless earth a score of small boys in rough denim shorts and white vests were playing basketball, watched desultorily by Mr Hill who came in twice a week and on Saturdays to teach them physical training and sports. Noel hated physical exercise. The running on the spot knees bend routines exhausted him and in his shorts and vest he knew he looked bony—all elbows and knees. He was no good at baseball or football either. Instead of giving him a break because he was the youngest, Mr Hill would exhort him to try harder, telling him he should keep up with the others. It was Luke who had protected him from Mr Hill’s vicious pushes into the mêlée around the basketball net and Luke who had run alongside him to come in last—way behind all the others—in the cross-country run. Without Luke, Noel thought he might have just lain down and died after the first half mile. He’d slumped by the side of the stony road, with red shadows fluttering ominously behind his closed lids, his dry throat burning and his heart thudding so hard he could hear it. Luke had spotted him and run back, putting a friendly arm around his shoulders. “Come on, kid,” he’d said kindly, “the first bit’s always the worst and you ran too hard trying to keep up. You’ll be okay now. We’ll just take it easy and get there in our own time.”
    Gratitude and admiration had mingled in Noel’s gaze. Because of his youth, Noel had always been lonely. The children entering the orphanage at the same time as Noel had, by chance, all been girls and therefore quickly adopted, depriving him of the companionship of his contemporaries. The other boys were older—many older than Luke—or were the real young ones, still in the infants department. Noone wanted to wait for the youngest, or to choose him for their team or to take him as their friend. With those words Luke cut through the isolation that surrounded Noel. And in return Noel loved him. He went out of his way to be near Luke, he made Luke’s bed for him, he put Luke’s grey flannel trousers under his own thin mattress to press Sunday creases in them, and he shined Luke’s shoes to glittering blackness for Sabbath chapel. His devotion to his friend was complete and Luke, who, although only ten himself, was popular with the older boys because of his size as well as his personality, tolerated Noel with a wide, kind grin, calling him “the kid” when the other boys were around. But