Free Adam of Albion by Kim McMahon, Neil McMahon Page A

“It’s miles
from here.”
    “Precisely—it
would have been impossible unless you’d had some kind of motorized
transportation.”
    Barry’s
fork froze in place halfway to his mouth.
    “But
I’m sure you never gave it a thought, anyway. Oh, well,” she added with a sigh,
“sometimes we just have to put up with the P’s, same as they do with us.”
    Adam
figured she was deliberately making Barry nervous so he wouldn’t want to hang
around with them this morning. But it made him nervous, too. He didn’t see any
way for those thugs to find them—they hadn’t even known that the boys were
there, besides which there’d been thousands of other young people wandering
around—but he still didn’t like thinking about it.
    Nobody
talked during the rest of breakfast, which only took a couple of minutes
because Barry and Adam were shoveling it away as fast as they could and Artemis
was barely eating at all. When they finished, they took their plates to the
kitchen to rinse and leave for Sophie.
    As
Barry forged ahead, Artemis held back and caught Adam’s eye. “Remember, play
along,” she whispered. He nodded.
    “Well,
cousin and guest, any special plans for the day?” she said, with a bright
smile. “Because I could really use some help—the stable where I keep my horse
needs to be mucked out. It’s not the most pleasant job, but with three of us it
shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”
    Barry’s
face got an expression like somebody was trying to hand him a hot brick.
    “Sorry—I’m
not feeling well,” he mumbled.
    “Really?
It didn’t seem to affect your appetite.”
    “It’s
not my stomach, it’s my back.”
    Right,
Adam thought. He knew older men who really did have bad backs, usually from
years of hard work at things like ranching or logging. But this was the first
time he’d ever heard Barry mention it.
    “I don’t
mind helping,” Adam said. “I do it at home all the time.”
    “Lovely,”
she said. “Barry, you’ll probably want to spend the day studying in our library
as usual. What’s your current passion—philosophy, history, literature?”
    “Yeah,
you bet, that’s exactly where I’ll be.” Then, like a naughty child, he threw
out the taunt, “ Artie, ” and dashed away up the stairs.
    She
shook her head with adult resignation. “He thinks it nettles me when he calls
me that. I don’t quite have the heart to tell him I don’t mind it. I really
feel kind of sorry for him. He’s unhappy, deep down, and he tries to cover it
with all that blustering and sneering.”
    Adam
thought exactly the same thing—although seeing as how Barry had just about
everything a kid could possibly want, it was hard to feel too sorry for
him. Anyway, they wouldn’t have to worry about him for a few hours—he’d hole up
in his room with TV and video games, and avoid the work like the black plague.
    “So
are we really going to the stable?” Adam asked, lowering his voice in case
Sophie was somewhere nearby.
    “Yes,
but don’t worry, it’s clean—the horse has been out to pasture for weeks,” she
whispered back. “Meet me in the front garden in a few minutes. I’ll bring our
little friend.” They reached the top of the stairs and split off to their own
rooms.
    Then,
as Adam was stepping into his, he was startled by Barry poking his head out of
the door across the hall.
    “See
what I mean about her being a freak?” he demanded.
    “No,
I don’t,” Adam said coolly. “And quit calling her that, okay? Just because
somebody’s got brains and doesn’t dress like a cheerleader, that doesn’t make
them a freak.”
    “Yeah,
sure—one freak sticking up for another,” Barry said sarcastically. “You two
should get along fine—we’ll have a regular freak show around here.”
    Adam
tried to follow Artemis’s example and not get mad, although it wasn’t easy. He
shrugged and started to turn away.
    But
then Barry surprised him again, this time in a way that Adam never would