Secret Heart Read Online Free Page B

be brilliant, you know,” she said. “I could be as good as my mum.”
    “I know.”
    “She was so quick, so light. When she spun across the tent they say she moved so fast she disappeared.” She looked at Joe again, as if daring him to disbelieve her. “There were moments in her act, Joe, when she couldn't even be seen.”
    Then she grinned, and turned the dog's face to Joe, and it yapped and bared its teeth.
    “This is Joe,” she said. “He's nice. He looks little and weak and shy and words get tangled on his tongue but he's strong and brave, I think.”
    The dog yapped again. Joe blushed.
    “I think we've come to the right place, little doggie,” said Corinna.
    She moved toward the door. Joe followed. She held the flap back and bright daylight slanted across them.
    “Who l-looks after you?” Joe asked.
    “After me?”
    “If your mum's gone?”
    “The others here. Wilfred and Charley Caruso and Nanty Solo and…Good kind folk. And Hacken-schmidt, of course.”
    Joe looked out across the wasteland toward the Black Bone Crags. He wanted to point and tell Corinna to look. He wanted to ask her what she saw out there.
    “Go on,” said Corinna. “You'll soon be back. If you're who we think you are, you'll soon be back.”

Nine
    The animal children still played outside. There were children giggling, dogs yapping, clowns dancing. A potbellied pig snuffled at the grass.
    “Tomasso!” someone called, from miles away. “Tomasso! Tomasso!”
    Joe moved toward the village.
    “Maloney!” someone barked. “Joseph Maloney!”
    Bleak Winters, Joe's humanities teacher. A clutch of ninth graders were at his back.
    “Mr. Maloney! How very nice to see you.”
    Joe just stood there, eyes downcast.
    “After all this time!” Winters said. “Thought our paths would never cross again!”
    He strode toward Joe with his arm stretched out as if to shake his hand. Some of the kids followed, nudged each other, giggled, as lots of kids around Winters did. Others hung back, turned away, boredby his booming voice, his showing off. Winters stretched out and took Joe's hand.
    “Let me introduce our Mr. Maloney,” he told them. “And, Mr. Maloney, let me introduce some of your fellow pupils from Hangar's High. Hangar's High. You may not remember it. A redbrick educational establishment. Your school, Mr. Maloney. Yes, your school!” He turned to the others and lowered his voice. “You may not yet have come across our Joseph Maloney, for he is an elusive little chap. Something of a star at the disappearing act.”
    They carried computer-printed banners: BAN THE CIRCUS; CIRCUS MEANS CRUELTY: LET THE ANIMALS GO; TAKE YOUR TENT SOMEWHERE ELSE.
    “Come and join us, Mr. Maloney. This is our lesson for today, a bit of philosophy, history, political action. What right have we to use animals for our entertainment?”
    He put his arm around Joe's shoulder.
    “Come and join us, Joseph. If you are not with us then you are against us.” He snorted. “Or are you already enlisted as the new tiger tamer?”
    “There's no t-tigers,” said Joe.
    Winters gasped. He raised a finger.
    “Let us listen to the words of an expert! Let us listen to the words of one who has already been inside the charnel house.”
    “There's no t-tigers!” Joe said. “There's no w-wild animals! They're gone.”
    He wriggled free of Winters.
    “That's not the point, Joe,” said Francesca Placido, a skinny girl with a Tibetan hat on. “What about the dogs? What about the pigs? It's not just tigers, it's the whole animal world we have to think of.”
    “Well said, Francesca,” said Winters. “Mr. Maloney?”
    Joe felt the lark singing inside him and the tiger prowling inside him. He looked at the teacher, and knew that Bleak Winters was never anything else except Bleak Winters. He looked at the children. He knew that they, like him, might have larks and tigers inside them, but they kept them hidden, and one day their larks and tigers might disappear, just