Free The Dead of Night by John Marsden Page A

conscious that she had it; that was her secret, and because I knew that, I would never have it.

    Well, that was one reason I would never have it.
    A hundred metres to my left was Homer, almost out of sight among a line of thin poplars that had been planted as a windbreak. He was big and burly, looking more like a bear than ever as he walked with his shoulders hunched up, his face closed against the cold wind. It was hard to tell what he was going through. He'd been in trouble so many times in his life that he should have been used to it. But this was just a bit different. I still didn't know whether to be angry at him or not. He'd broken one of our agreements, but my anger at that was overlaid with my pity and horror at what he'd done, and my confusion because he'd probably been right and we'd been wrong. There'd been no time to check how he was feeling, to see if he was OK. That would have to wait till we were back in the peace and safety of Hell. Meanwhile, thinking about how he might be feeling helped me avoid thinking about how I was feeling.
    On the other flank was Robyn. Looking at her I thought of those old-time heroes. Those old kings for instance, who'd all had titles to go with their names: Edward the Confessor, Ethelred the Unready, William the Conqueror. Robyn was Robyn the Dauntless. When things were going quietly and normally she kept a low profile. But when the going got tough, Robyn grabbed the axe, swung it round her head, and charged. In the most frightening times, the most horrifying moments, she was at her best. Nothing seemed to deter
her. Maybe she felt nothing could touch her. I don't know. Even now she was walking along quite casually, head up. I had the impression that she was singing something even, by the way she was tapping her left hand on her thigh.

    The other one who was pretty up was Lee. The night we wrecked the bridge he was happy, but he hadn't been able to do much because of his wounded leg. This time we'd done a lot of damage—we knew that—and Lee had been in the thick of it. Lee always moved like a thoroughbred racehorse when we were out in the open or walking a big distance, and now he moved along eagerly, head pointing forward, long legs covering k after k. Occasionally he looked across and smiled at me, or winked. I didn't know whether to be pleased that he was feeling so proud, or worried that he was enjoying killing people and wrecking things. At least it made life less complicated for him.
    As for me, my mind was so crowded that thoughts were being squeezed out of my ears. I wouldn't have been surprised to find them dripping from my nostrils. There was just too much to cope with. Instead I shoved it all away and started going through French irregular verbs. Je vis, tu vis, il vit, nous vivons, vous vivez, ils vivent. Je meurs, tu meurs, il meurt, nous mourons, vous mourez, ils meurent. It seemed safer doing that than thinking about our ambush, and it seemed to keep my huge dark shadow from haunting me for a little bit longer.
    We got back to my place in the last moments of daylight. I didn't go in the house this time. Already it was starting to look unfamiliar, as though it were just an old
building we'd lived in once, a long time ago. You could tell it was unoccupied. The lawn had grown wildly, all straggly and confused. One of the bow windows in the dining room had cracked right across, I don't know how. Maybe a bird had flown into it. Half the grape vine had fallen off the trellis and was now dragging across the path and garden. That was my fault. Dad had told me a dozen times to tie it on better.

    The faithful Land Rover was waiting patiently in the bushes, hidden from prying eyes. I drove it to the shed and filled it with petrol. We were lucky we had our petrol in an overhead tank, so I could gravity-feed it to the car. Eventually though, we'd run out of petrol. I didn't know what we'd do then. I sighed, twisted the hose to cut off the flow, and climbed back up