Poor Badger Read Online Free Page B

‘You can’t do that!’
    ‘Who says I can’t?’
    ‘Mr Smith will know it’s you.’
    ‘He’ll have to prove it. We’ll leave no clues. No clues at all.’
    Leo didn’t like the ‘we’. He wriggled anxiously.
    Ros, softening, said, ‘Honestly, Leo. It will work if we plan it very carefully. I will think it out.’
    ‘Like a general?’
    ‘Yes, like a general.’ General Palfrey. It sounded good. Badger could depend on General Palfrey.
    Armies had training exercises. She would have a training exercise.
    ‘I’ll have a practice! I’ll try it out, going to Badger when everyone is asleep! I’ll try it!’
    ‘When? Tonight?’
    ‘Tonight!’ Ros was startled. The snow lay slushy and uninviting over the damp fields and sleet was forecast. But the title she had just given herself put the prospect in a different light.
    ‘Yes. Why not? Tonight. I will go tonight!’
    ‘Me too?’ Leo’s voice was deeply apprehensive.
    ‘Not this time, no.’
    ‘What shall I do then?’
    Ros considered.
    ‘We’ve got to find somewhere to take him to. That’s going to be tricky. You could think about that.’ Leo was good at thinking. He got high marks at school. He wasn’t a lot of good at doing though.
    ‘Over this way would be easiest, not far from home,’ she said.
    ‘You’ll never get him over the bridge!’
    Generals overcame all obstacles. Ros was not going to make the bridge an obstacle. She stuck out her jaw.
    ‘Why not?’
    The idea, having take root, would not leave her. But as the day wore on, she decided to shelve the practice run . . . not tonight, anyway. The thought of it, even just the practice, frightened her quite a lot. She must have time to get up her courage. Finding the place to take him to could be tackled first. It was the most important thing, after all.
    ‘We’ll go looking on Saturday,’ she decided. ‘Both of us. And when we’ve found a place, I’ll have the practice.’
    She studied the footbridge carefully the next morning on the way to school. Leo was right. It was the only way to take Badger; the car park was out of the question, leading as it did into the main shopping centre. The footbridge was not used much, even in daytime, and Ros thought it was unlikely they would meet anyone after midnight. Crossing the main road would be tricky, as cars went along it more or less all night. Perhaps at three in the morning there would a gap, after late-night parties, before work . . .
    The footbridge was stoutly built, and the steps up and down were shallow and fairly wide so that bicycles and pushchairs could be manhandled without too much difficulty.
    ‘You will go over it, won’t you, Badger?’
    Badger gobbled her carrots greedily and pushed at her pockets for more. Ros thought that for food he would follow her anywhere, now he was so hungry. If they took a bucket of carrots and porridge oats, and Leo walked in front . . . she would need Leo.
    She told him that. He looked wan.
    On Saturday they took their bikes and went exploring, to find a place. It needed to be as close as possible, so that they could get home and back in bed without being discovered. The land on their side of the main road was all farms, but mostly crops, and what cow fields there were were all empty now and the gates padlocked. Although Ros was friendly with all the neighbouring farmers, none of them were likely to want to have anything to do with stolen property, even if they were sympathetic. There was a riding school a mile away, but all the ponies were now stabled and the fields empty.
    ‘We could bring him here and leave him in the field.’ Leo noticed that there was no padlock on the gate. ‘They’d find him in the morning.’
    ‘And tell the police,’ Ros said darkly.
    ‘Well, anyone would. Anyone honest.’
    ‘We want someone dishonest then.’
    ‘Sid the Pigman is dishonest,’ Leo said.
    Sid the Pigman lived quite close, in a caravan. He had been turned out of a farm cottage when the