good move. No one took any notice of him, and he could learn a lot by looking in the shops. He could find out what food looked like, and many other things, too, that he had never seen before and did not know the use of. they had an enormous number of possessions, these people …
David felt quite dizzy with looking at so many things, and he stopped a moment. In front of him a man and a woman were walking along, and as they talked and laughed together they were eating something they had bought from a shop. When they finished, the woman threw away the paper they had been eating f. His heart beating faster, David picked it up in the dark: there was often something printed on the paper things were wrapped in.
He hurried on to the nearest light — yes, there was printing on it, something he could practise reading! Tomorrow when it grew light … He dared not stand still too long outside a brightly-lit shop: besides, he did not feel too well, he had a headache and felt sick. He had better go back to his rock.
He looked up and discovered he was standing in a large square. At first he was frightened, for he felt much safer in the narrow streets, but then he forgot his fear as he saw in front of him on the other side of the square a very big building with a cross on top.
A church! “If there’s a cross, then it’s a church”, he remembered Johannes had once told him. But he did not tell him that a church could be beautiful — its walls built of different kinds of stone that formed intricate and lovely patterns, its great doors approached by a magnificent flight of steps. David looked at the church for a long time. He felt it had some meaning for him, but he could not tell what. His head felt very heavy as if he had been running all night long: he must return to his hide-out.
Slowly he turned his back upon the square and went down into the narrow, brightly-lit streets again. He stopped outside a shop where they baked round flat loaves with what he had learnt were called tomatoes on top. He was hungry. Not very hungry at the moment, but he would be by the morning. Perhaps in the morning he would find another orange.
He turned to go.
“Hi, want one, eh?”
David turned round with a start. The man was standing in the open doorway offering him one of the loaves. David automatically put out his hand — and then he quickly withdrew it. A trap. He would take the bread and then the man would fetch them …
He looked up into the man’s face and saw it was just like the sailor’s — the same slightly stupid expression, the same good-natured eyes. David hesitated; perhaps he would not have him arrested. There were some good people — Johannes had told him so — and he had heard the same thing from other prisoners: they had often spoken of those who had helped them and hidden them for long periods when they were after them.
The man laughed in a hearty friendly way, the way everybody laughed here. “Well! Perhaps the young fellow isn’t hungry!” he said. “Yes, I am,” David answered. “Thank you very much!” He took the bread and off he went with quick unhurried steps. The man frowned and looked at him a little puzzled. Then he shrugged his shoulders right up to his ears and let them fall again, as if he were shaking something off, and went back to his loaves.
Never in the whole of David’s life had a day passed so quickly as did the next one. Still free, he had got back to his rocks again, eaten half the loaf the man had given him and lain down to sleep. When he woke it was day, and everything was just as warm and beautiful in the bright sunshine as it had been the day before. He had run up to the little stream for a wash before anyone was about, and even the fact that his soap had grown much thinner from overmuch use the day before did not really trouble him. Perhaps it was because he had washed his shirt and trousers with it as well. He decided to make do with washing his hands and feet and face that day and to