Free The Night They Stormed Eureka by Jackie French

this morning’s coins and pinches of gold dust in their bag down in the big woman’s stocking. Secrets, she thought as she splashed the cold water onto her face. If the Professor’s right then the diggings are full of secrets.
    How many of the men who had sat at the fire that morning had secrets they were running from? A convict past, or a wife they wanted to leave behind? Surely some were like the Puddlehams, who’d come here to follow a dream, not just to leave their past behind.
    She sat up and ran her fingers through her hair to try to comb it. Did the Puddlehams have more secrets she didn’t know about? The Professor had said that Mr Puddleham was only pretending that he’d been a butler. And who was Lucy? If she was the baby behind Mrs Puddleham’s disgrace, what had happened to her? Something bad, so bad she’d run away, like Sam?
    No, thought Sam. Mrs Puddleham’s secrets were nice ones. They had to be. How a light crumbly mix would make a perfect pudding, and how long boiling was the best way to give anything more flavour (''cause wood is free,’ said Mrs Puddleham, ‘even if it’s a weary business to search for it').
    Sam dried her face on her sleeve. There was something else she had to see to, something embarrassing. But she couldn’t put off much longer.
    She arrived back at the camp just as Mrs Puddleham gave a long hard stir to the stew pot that held the mutton. It burped back at her, one giant lazy bubble, then went back to its slow day-long simmer. The other pots were simmering slowly too, each with only one side nudged into the fire, the puddings in their cloths only just moving in the water.
    ‘Um,’ said Sam.
    Mrs Puddleham beamed at her. ‘Yes, lovey?’
    Sam gestured at the chamber pot lurking in the tent’s lean-to. ‘What do I do with that?’ she whispered.
    Mrs Puddleham grinned. ‘Just pour it down there,’ she jerked her head towards a mound of dirt above the gully. ‘That claim ain’t been dug for I don’t know how long. Right handy to put the rubbish down, ain’t it, Mr Puddleham?’
    ‘Indeed,’ said Mr Puddleham. He dipped a rag into the pudding water, then held the hot cloth briefly against his face. Sam stared as he took the cloth off and began to scrape off his whiskers with what looked like a long knife. No soap or shaving cream or razor, she thought, or even a mirror.
    She hoped he didn’t cut his throat.
    ‘Mr Puddleham shaves twice a week, regular,’ said Mrs Puddleham proudly. ‘Neatest man on the diggin’s, he is. And a bit of mutton fat on his hair every morning to keep it shiny. Now you see to the potty, deary. Then I’ve got a surprise for you.’
    Surprise? thought Sam, trudging over to the abandoned mine. You’d have to be desperate for gold, she thought as she poured the contents of the pot into its depths, to start digging there any time soon.
    She rinsed the chamber pot in the creek — polluting it, she thought, but she wasn’t going to have the pot stinking out the lean-to. The water was probably polluted already. And she’d washed in it … She decided only to drink boiled water if she could.
    Mrs Puddleham was undoing her apron as she got back, while Mr Puddleham wiped his newly shaved face on a bit of sacking.
    ‘There,’ said the big woman. ‘Now you keep a watch on them pots, Mr P, and make sure no one dips his paws into them, and stir the stew proper …’
    ‘Yes, Mrs Puddleham,’ said her husband, as gravely as if she’d asked him to guard the queen’s jewels.
    ‘We’ll be back in time for you to get more wood. But me and Sam has got more important things to see to.’
    Mr Puddleham cast a sharp look at Sam, then a softer one at his wife. He nodded.
    ‘What?’ asked Sam.
    Mrs Puddleham reached into the tent for her bonnet. ‘We got to get you some boots. Ain’t no child of mine going around in wet feet. Enough to give you your death of cold, wet feet is.’
    Sam glanced down at her sneakers. They’d been worn already, and