The Hunting Ground Read Online Free Page A

I’m off.’
    ‘Thanks,’ Ben muttered. ‘Don’t expect me to save you when the ghost comes looking for you, then. C’mon,’ he yelled. ‘I’ll race you back to the house.’

THE DIARY OF
THEO STARK
     
    When they got back Ben headed straight upstairs while Elliott went to look for something to eat. He was concentrating so hard on finishing off a mustard-smeared ham sandwich as he left the kitchen that he clattered into Dad coming out of the hall.
    ‘Sorry,’ Dad chuckled, seeing Elliott jump. ‘This place is making us all a bit jittery, eh? I thought you might like to have a look at these.’ He held out some loose sheets of paper.
    Elliott took them from him. ‘What are they?’
    ‘A diary. The beginning of one, anyhow. I found it when I was clearing the library. Weird I didn’t find it earlier, actually, since I’ve been in there most of the morning. It was just lying on a chair for anyone to see. There are only six or seven pages, but if a tragedy did occur here a couple of generations ago, the diary date is about right. Which is curious, isn’t it?’
    Elliott looked at the top sheet. It was a title page,handwritten in blue faded ink. In bold, underlined letters the cover proclaimed:

The Diary of Theo Stark
     
    The paper was lined, discoloured around the edges and dry to touch. It had clearly been waiting a long time to be discovered. Dad glanced at Elliott, obviously interested in what he thought.
    ‘Neat writing,’ Elliott said, knowing it was a stupid remark under the circumstances, but unable to think of anything else to say.
    ‘Schools taught people to write with formal correctness in those days,’ Dad told him. ‘It’s the diary of a teenage boy. I’ve only had a quick look at it, but it’s entertaining.’
    ‘Yeah?’
    Elliott turned to page one.
    Hello! I’m Theo, and this, dear friend, is the premier entry in my first ever diary – a vaguely exciting moment for me anyway.
    Don’t ask me why I’ve decided to start a diary. There’s just something about this weird house that makes it seem worth it. My little sister, Eve, says diaries are dumb, but she’s only seven and classifies everything not related to herself or herdolls as dumb, so we’ll ignore her view about everything.
    OK. Date and time check. It’s 9.42 a.m. on, let’s see, the 13th September 1962. OK, a few facts. I’m sixteen, brown hair, six feet tall, well, only three inches less than that, and—
    Hold on. Mum just looked over my shoulder and says I’m starting all wrong. She says you’re supposed to
confess
things in diaries. That’s what they’re for, she reckons. So, since she’s being so nosy, I think I’ll start off by confessing something on her behalf. Her hair caught fire yesterday. Interesting to watch, actually. She was bending over a candlelit table on Dad’s birthday, about to kiss him, when she got a bit too close to the flame. What I learned in that moment is that
you absolutely cannot control how fast hair burns
. Mum was all right, but Dad missed out on his kiss.
    Right, I’m starting to ramble already. Mum’s an artist and she says because I take after her that’s inevitable – the rambling, that is.
    By the way, she recreated the singeing moment this morning over breakfast. She used hay strands and leftover bits of bacon rind to symbolise her hair before setting it alight. Typical of Mum. I’m used to her wacky ways, but I tend to keep her away from my friends. Actually, what am I talking about? I haven’tgot any friends here. Glebe House’s latest owners are on some kind of extended holiday in Italy or something, so Mum, who knows them, nagged/ begged Dad to grab the house for the year while they’re away. So here we are – middle of nowhere. I haven’t even got much to do. I finished school in July, and still haven’t decided what to do yet.
    Anyway, now you know my family. We’ve been in Glebe House for about a week already. It’s weird here. There are these strange