Free Eight Days of Luke by Diana Wynne Jones Page B

turned up on Chewsday.”
    â€œFunnier still if he’d turned up on Monday,” Luke said. He seemed to have missed the point, which was unlike him. But he was obviously thinking of something else. “I have been a fool!” he said. “I was too glad to be out to think—if you knew what it was like down there, you’d have been glad too. I should have realized they’d track me down—but they knew when the lock was broken, if I’d only thought—and I ought to have guessed I wouldn’t have quite the old control at first. But, no, I have to go and burn that creeper. Then I get really stupid and make that fire yesterday. They knew that was me all right. And to crown it all, I have to go to sleep on the end of your bed and let Chew catch up with me. I must be getting old, or something.”
    â€œYou don’t seem old to me,” David said.
    â€œI never seem old to anyone,” said Luke. “But I must be, or I wouldn’t have been so tired. I expect it’s being shut up for so long.”
    â€œHow long were you shut up?” David asked curiously.
    Luke took a sudden fierce turn to cheerfulness. “Oh, I’ve lost count.”
    David tried another question. “And who is Mr. Chew?”
    â€œDistant relative,” Luke said merrily. “About the same as your Cousin Ronald is to you.”
    David saw that Luke had somehow talked himself into a more carefree state of mind. In a way he was glad, but he was also a little sorry, because he knew Luke was not going to tell him any more. “So what are you going to do?” he asked.
    Sure enough, Luke smiled in the way that meant he was not telling. “I’ll manage. As long as you keep your mouth shut and don’t meet me in the house again. Now, what shall we do?”
    â€œPlay cricket,” said David.

7
FLOWERS
    D avid and Luke spent an excellent morning playing cricket in the recreation ground. There, they met a plump and placid boy called Alan, who was only too glad to let them play in his team. This team was losing when David and Luke joined it. A very few overs from David put a stop to that.
    â€œI say! You’re a good bowler, aren’t you!” Alan said admiringly, as the fourth wicket fell.
    David grinned, and was much inclined to like Alan. He hoped Luke liked him too. But, to his surprise, Luke hardly seemed aware that Alan existed. When Luke spoke, it was to David, and, for all the notice he took of Alan or any of the other boys, they might not have been playing at all. David was rather irritated.
    â€œI like Alan,” he said, when the game finished. “Don’t you?”
    â€œWho’s Alan?” Luke said vaguely. Then he seemed to remember. “Oh—I suppose he’s all right,” he said.
    David, as he walked home through Ashbury, wondered if this was another example of Luke’s strangeness. But it could equally well have been because Luke was so worried about Mr. Chew. Beside Mr. Chew, Alan or anyone else did seem rather unimportant.
    Trouble began again when David, clean, changed and tidy, came in to lunch.
    â€œAh, David,” said Aunt Dot. “Why did you not tell me you had met that charming and nicely spoken child who was here this morning? What is his name?”
    â€œLuke,” said Astrid, raising her eyebrows at David.
    â€œYes, Luke,” said Aunt Dot. “He tells me he lives with Mr. and Mrs. Fry at the end of the road. At least,” she corrected herself, because she was always very strict about facts, “I asked if he did and he said Yes.”
    David wondered how Luke was ever going to keep up this piece of dishonesty. Would it be possible to persuade courteous old Mr. Fry to join in? David rather thought not. “I met Mr. Fry this morning,” he said, hoping Aunt Dot would see it as supporting evidence. “He said they were going to call on you, him and Mrs. Fry.”
    Uncle Bernard at once