Sabrina Fludde Read Online Free

father and some days he was PANCHO THE PAN-PIPE-PLAYING PERUVIAN,
Fallen Upon Hard Times
, and sometimes PADDY MC-BY-THE-WAY, UILLEAN PIPE MASTER,
Fallen Upon the Potato Famine –
there for all the town to see beneath the hats as Mr Bytheway, the music teacher – it wasn’t very funny.
    â€˜Evening, Bentley,’ Dad said, continuing the fast movement of a cello concerto without dropping a note. ‘What are you doing with my saxophone?’
    â€˜What are
you
doing, more to the point?’ Bentley said, blushing and thrusting his father’s saxophone behind his back. ‘You know how mad Mum gets when you go out busking! Especially on a night like this, with not a soul about to fill your hat!’
    They both looked at the pennies in the bottom of the hat. A cold wind was blowing up the hill, and Bentley shivered. Dad stopped playing at last, and the sudden silence was eerie. He started packing up.
    â€˜Your mum says busking doesn’t pay, but we’ll show her one day,’ he said, pocketing the pennies in the top hat. He winked at Bentley.
    Bentley winked back. The two of them walked home together, hunched against the wind. It was nearly Hallowe’en and the shop windows were full of witches’ masks and leering orange pumpkins. The streetlamps had been smashed in Dogpole Alley, and they had to crunch over broken glass to get up the front steps.
    â€˜It’s always the same, this time of year,’ Dad complained. ‘Hallowe’en seems to bring out the worst in people. Broken glass and stolen sweaters. All tricks and no treats!’
    They slipped into the house, shutting the door quietly as if they could sneak in without Mum noticing. Dad stopped to store the instruments in the downstairs room he called ‘the music school’, and Bentley hurried upstairs hoping that Mum would be in bed. But she was still up in the living room, sitting at her sewing machine with an eye on the clock.
    â€˜Where have you been?’ she said when he came in. ‘Busking with your father? No, don’t tell me! You should be working for good grades
,
not playing on the streets and making fools of yourselves!’
    Dad followed Bentley into the room. ‘Once you used to love this fool for his music,’ he said.
    â€˜I loved you for yourself, not
Julian Boyd-Wibbler
!’ Mum said.
    â€˜You wouldn’t say that if you knew how much he’s made!’
    Dad tipped out his evening’s pennies and Mum looked at them and burst out laughing. She shook her head as if she knew she couldn’t win, put aside her sewing and they all went to bed.
    In the morning Bentley woke up late for school. Thealarm clock lay across the room where he had thrown it. Mum had already gone to work, and Dad was nowhere to be seen. A note on the table informed Bentley that if he wanted cereal, he’d have to nip out and buy milk.
    Bentley didn’t bother with the cereal, or any other breakfast, and hurried off to school knowing he’d be late. He forgot the only bit of homework that he’d managed to get done, and his physics teacher made him stay for detention at the end of the day. When he finally came out of school, it was getting dark. He trailed through town feeling sorry for himself. He was starving hungry, having forgotten lunch as well as breakfast, but knew that when he got home he’d have to face Mum, who would have been phoned about the detention.
    So he drifted round the town, putting off the evil moment by mooching round the shops. Finally they began to close and Pride Hill started emptying. The newspaper sellers shut up for the night and even the town beggars disappeared for a quiet break before the night’s trade.
    Bentley turned for home at last. What else could he do? Only a few moments ago the town had thronged with life, but now everything seemed quiet and eerie. In Dogpole Alley, the streetlamps were still broken, and in the darkness he imagined