Read The Quickening of Tom Turnpike (The Talltrees Trilogy) for Free Online Page A

for displaying
absolutely no smugness.  Again, if any boy achieves all of this, he will
likewise be celebrated as a hero and duly worshipped for the rest of the day.
    Freddie
and I were standing out in the field, waiting for the tennis ball to fly in our
direction.
    “I told you Barrington didn’t see you in the Dungeon,” said Freddie.
    “I’m
not so sure, Fred,” I replied.  Obviously I was extremely relieved that the
Colonel hadn’t said anything about it, but I couldn’t help feeling that it was just
impossible that he hadn’t seen me.  “He must be up to something,” I said.  “The
only reason I can think that he wouldn’t have punished me or reported me is
that he doesn’t want anyone knowing he was down there too.”
    Freddie
shrugged.
    “Anyway,”
he said, “I think we’d better keep clear of Vanderpump for a while.  He’ll be
after us.”
    “We
don’t need to worry about him,” I lied.   
    I
had always tried to pretend that it didn’t upset me when people talked the way
Vanderpump had about my father when we had been out in the Forest.  But it
did. 
    My
mother always said that he would return, any moment.  I had worked out some
time ago that I had to try and convince myself that he was gone forever just so
that I could get on with things, but it’s impossible not to hope.  However much
time passed, I would always be sure that I would see him again.  My mother,
like most mothers of boys whose fathers had fallen in the War or had been taken
away during the Resistance, hardly ever spoke about him.  All she would tell
me, whenever I asked, was that he was a very brave man and that I was not to listen
to anything anyone said about him.  And that he would come back to us.
    I
hated Vanderpump.  We were told that we were not supposed to speak about our
fathers, but Vanderpump didn’t care for that.  He had no shame at all.
    “Anyway,”
I added, “he’s an idiot.  He’s bound to find someone else to get angry with
before the next time I see him.”
    “Well,”
said Freddie, changing the subject, “when do you think we should look for this
book Mr. English told us about?  I told you there was a false book back
there somewhere.  What was it?  Al de Sucksley?”
    “I
think he said “Huxley”.  But he was just recommending a book.  He can’t have
been helping us find a secret room.  Anyway, even if he was, there’s no way we
can look for it now.  Not after Barrington caught us.”
    Archie
Bartholomew-Crump, known as “ABC”, the Head Boy, was swaggering into bat.  This
should be good.  He was the opening batsman for the 1 st XI and
captain of tennis.
    “Tom,
look!”  Freddie was pointing over to our left where Barrington was strolling
over the gravel towards the 1 st XI pitch with Doctor Saracen. 
    “Looks
like they’re having an argument,” I said. 
    Colonel
Barrington was gesticulating dramatically, clearly trying to impress a point of
view upon Doctor Saracen.  From this distance, it was impossible to hear what
he was saying, but what was clear was that he was becoming very irate.  Saracen
then stopped walking and stood shaking his head and raising his hands in
impatient exasperation.  He then turned with a shrug of the shoulders and set
off back towards the school building.  The Colonel stood for a moment where he was
with his hands on his hips and then he hurried after Doctor Saracen.
    But
nobody else seemed to have noticed because, just then, ABC had managed to hit
the ball so cleanly that it scudded miles up into the air, far over the heads
of all of the boys in the field.  It plummetted downwards like a Stuka Dive
Bomber towards the swimming pool, bounced off the diving board and disappeared
forever in a dense rhododendron. 
    Everyone
was cheering, even some of the teachers who were admiring the game with pre-dinner
sherry from their vantage point on the terrace above the Veranda.  ABC, of
course, in the time-honoured spirit of slog-out,