Free Piggies by Nick Gifford Page B

It was open a crack, and they could see through to the side of the farmhouse. The windows were open and voices spilled out into the mild summer night. Occasionally, a figure moved across a window.
    It all looked so normal.
    “Keep watch,” said Zeb. “I’m going to look around a bit more, see what else I can find.”
    ~
    Ben was alone.
    He wondered if this was some kind of plan: maybe Alik had told them to lead him away from the woods and abandon him. But every so often, he heard a small sound from the depths of the barn and he knew Zeb was not far away.
    A horse whinnied again. From what Ben could see, the back of the barn butted on to some stables. Anna had said they had a riding school here.
    He eased the door open a little wider. There seemed to be a faint light coming from the stables. Was there someone in there?
    Ben slipped outside. If he stayed close to the back of the barn, he would be in darkness.
    He edged his way along towards the stables.
    The doors were split: the top half open, the bottom closed.
    He reached the stables and stepped towards the door.
    A head and shoulders suddenly appeared in the opening.
    “Wha–?”
    Ben froze. He was in the shadows still. Zeb had taught him that movement attracts the eye: stand without moving and you can be near invisible.
    A bright light shone in his face.
    “ You ,” said a girl’s voice. “What are you doing here?”
    He recognised the voice. The light flicked out and for a moment Ben was still blinded. Then his vision returned and he saw that she had emerged from the stables, clutching a saddle to her chest.
    It was the girl from town. The one with the spiky blonde hair and the tight jeans.
    Rachel. That was her name. She’d been with the two boys.
    She’d let them drink her blood.
    Ben started to back away.
    She stood there, smirking at him.
    And then there was another sound: a sudden swell of noise from the house as a door opened.
    “Rachel?” called a man. “Is that you out there, Rachel?”
    There was a middle-aged man standing at the open door. He looked as if he was about to come right out.
    Rachel looked from the man back to Ben again. “It’s okay,” she called. “It’s me, Dad. I’m just finishing.”
    As the man went back into the house, Ben edged away, then turned and darted into the barn.
    Zeb was by the far door, ready to run. When he saw Ben, he hurried over to him.
    “We’d better go,” hissed Ben. “There’s someone outside at the stables.”
    “Right. Okay. Let’s go.”
    “Did you find anything else?”
    Zeb collected a pick-axe he must have left by the big barn doors. He handed it to Ben, and stooped again to pick up a petrol can. “Just these,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.”

11 Rachel
    He saw her again, briefly, about a week later. She was out riding a pony on one of the wide tracks that cut through the eastern side of the woods.
    He was with Zeb and the two of them hid in the woodland edge as the horse and rider swept by.
    She looked peaceful and relaxed, just her and her pony and the trees. She looked normal. But she wasn’t, Ben knew. That memory of her and the two boys would be imprinted on his mind for the rest of his life.
    The next time he saw her was one of the rare occasions when he was on his own.
    ~
    He’d been in the woodland community for two weeks, now, and they still didn’t fully trust him.
    Half the people thought he was mad: a boy with no past, or with no past that anyone would believe. The others thought he was lying, covering up something in his past that he didn’t want them to know about.
    But they were unanimous in not trusting him. Walter had been more sympathetic than a lot of the woodlanders, but Ben realised that even he was suspicious. He didn’t know if Walter thought him mad or a liar, but after a while he came to understand that Walter had asked Zeb to both look after him and keep an eye on him.
    Zeb, himself, seemed to have accepted Ben now and he was far more relaxed than he had