The Long Walk Home Read Online Free Page A

opened the cell door. 'Fetch your pail and don't spill any or you'll have to scrub all of 'corridor.'
    Mikey put down his sweeping brush, picked up the pail and followed the warder down the passageway. He was still below ground, but the air was fresher than in his now stinking cell, a draught blowing down from outside. He took a breath as he went up the flight of stairs and stepped at last into the open air.
    The warder showed him where to empty his pail and swill it out under the pump. Mikey ducked his head and face under the stream of cold water to refresh himself. He shook his head and hair and took another breath. Right, he thought. What's next?
     
     
    'Papa?' Eleanor hesitated. Her father did not encourage questions, but on evenings when he was home early from his office and not working late, as he often did, she visited her parents in the drawing room before they went down to the dining room for supper to tell them about her lessons and the happenings of her day. He was the one who instigated the questions, and she answered them. Never, in all her eleven years, could she remember daring to pluck up the courage to ask him anything.
    Her days were long. There were lessons every morning from her governess, Miss Wright, who was, she insisted, always right; after the midday meal there was a walk to the pier if the weather was clement, or to a museum if it was not, with either her governess or one of the maids. There had never been anything she wanted to ask or tell her father. He was a remote figure who happened to be married to her mother.
    Her mother might come to the schoolroom occasionally and sit on a chair for five minutes and question Miss Wright vaguely on the subject that Eleanor was studying, or tell her about a letter received from her older brother Simon, who was away at a hated boarding school. Then she would drift away, saying she had masses to do before Eleanor's lawyer father returned home for luncheon.
    Eleanor never received letters from her brother. Once, when he was very young and had first gone away, he had written to her, but Eleanor wasn't allowed to read the letter. It had been intercepted by her father and confiscated. Eleanor knew in her heart that it had contained a message of misery, for Simon hadn't wanted to go to school. He feared it, and on subsequent visits home told Eleanor how terrible it was; how the masters beat him and the other boys did too. Now, at almost thirteen, he stood up for himself and boasted to her that he gave out similar punishments to younger, newer boys.
    Her father raised his eyebrows. 'Do you wish to ask me something, Eleanor?'
    Eleanor bit hard on her lip. Her heart was pounding. 'I just— I just wanted to ask—'
    'Speak up, child,' her father said impatiently. 'Don't mumble.'
    She swallowed, wishing she hadn't begun the conversation. She glanced at her mother for encouragement, but Mrs Kendall was gazing down into her lap and was no help at all. 'I wondered what had happened to that boy. The one who stole the rabbit.' She trembled at her own boldness. If her father hadn't chosen that particular day to take her to his place of work for the very first time, so that she might see for herself how he conducted his affairs and made a living for the family, then she would have known nothing about the incident. But she had witnessed it, and she had not been able to dismiss it from her mind.
    Her father drew himself up in his chair, his shoulders even straighter than usual, though he never slouched. 'And what, young lady, is that to do with you?'
    'Nothing, Papa; but I wondered if he'd been very hungry and that was why he stole it.' She felt her cheeks growing pink, but she raised her eyes to his.
    'Two rabbits, Quinn stole. That was the crime, even though he had only one in his hands when he was so timely caught. The other he probably passed on to an accomplice.' He narrowed his gaze. 'I hope you are not feeling sorry for him?'
    She didn't answer, but put her hands behind