Read Crow Boy for Free Online Page B

doesn’t arise that often. And look around you, laddie; I already have three mouths to feed and it doesn’t get any easier.’
    â€˜Couldn’t he take wee Davey’s place?’ asked Morag.
    There was a deep silence after this was said. Tom glanced nervously around the room to see that the other children had stopped working and bowed their heads as though disturbed by the very mention of the boy’s name.
    â€˜Who’s wee Davey?’ he asked.
    â€˜Ach, he was just a boy who was here before,’ said Morag. She sounded evasive. ‘We all loved wee Davey. He made us laugh.’
    â€˜What happened to him?’
    â€˜He . . . well, he died.’
    â€˜Oh.’ Tom frowned. ‘Was it the plague?’ he asked.
    â€˜No it was not!’ snapped Missie Grierson, leaning forward to glare at him. ‘It was the consumption, everyone knows that. We’ve no plague here.’
    â€˜But I thought . . .’
    â€˜Oh aye, there’s plague in the Close, sure enough; you’ll see the white sheets hanging in the windows and some of them not so very far from here. But with wee Davey it was the consumption, and don’t you be telling anyone any different, d’you hear me?’
    Tom nodded. ‘Sure, I was only . . .’
    â€˜The thing about wee Davey, as you’ll have guessed by his name, he was only small but he was strong too. He could carry sacks full of potatoes without breaking a sweat. Could you do that?’
    â€˜Well,’ said Tom. ‘I suppose I could. I’ve never really had much call to do it. Tesco always delivered ours.’
    â€˜Tess who?’
    â€˜Never mind,’ said Tom. He reminded himself that he really should think before he opened his big mouth. ‘I’m pretty strong,’ he said, trying to change the subject. ‘I played rugby at my last school.’ He saw the blank look on her face and corrected himself. ‘I played sports !’ He bunched his hands into fists and lifted his arms, strongman style. ‘Check them out,’ he offered.
    â€˜I’ll take your word for it.’ Missie Grierson puffed on her pipe a bit more and then seemed to come to a decision. ‘I suppose we can try you out, see if you measure up. But let me warn you, any slacking and you’ll be out on your backside; there’s no room for that sort here. We all pitch in, isn’t that right, children?’
    â€˜Aye!’ came back the reply, as though they’d rehearsed it.
    â€˜So, do you think you could fit in with us?’ asked Missie Grierson.
    â€˜I’ll give it my best shot,’ said Tom.
    Morag couldn’t seem to stop smiling. ‘Shall I show him where he’ll be sleeping?’ she asked.
    â€˜No you will not! The very idea!’ Missie Grierson crooked a finger at the red-headed boy. ‘Cameron, you take a break from that peeling and let Morag earn her supper for a change. Then you take Tom upstairs and show him his bed.’ She looked at Tom. ‘Where are your bags?’ she asked him.
    â€˜I haven’t got any,’ he told her.
    â€˜Oh, come along now, you must have a knapsack or something? A cloth bundle, maybe. Everybody has to carry something with them.’
    Tom shook his head. ‘I . . . left in kind of a hurry,’ he said.
    She gave him a suspicious look. ‘Oh, hang on a minute. You’re no’ in trouble with the constables, are ye?’
    â€˜Oh no,’ he assured her. ‘Nothing like that.’
    â€˜I hope not, because if I find out that there’s something you haven’t told me, there will be trouble, of that I can promise you.’
    Tom ran it through in his mind. Well, actually, Missie G. there is something I haven’t mentioned. You see, I’m from the 21st century and I’ve ended up here and I’ve no idea how it happened or how I’m ever going to get back . . .
    But she was already gesturing to him