Long Way Home. Michael Morpurgo

      George stopped rubbing and lowered his towel. ‘Paying?’ he said. He looked from Tom to his father, but they were both hidden by their towels. He was confused. It had been a wonderful afternoon; he had felt at ease with everyone. There had been no special treatment. He had begun to feel that he belonged there working with them. And now, suddenly, Mr Dyer was offering to pay him money – just to him, not to Storme or Tom, just to him. He was to be paid for the work like all the other foster children who came there every summer. ‘I don’t want to be paid,’ he said quietly, and he turned away from them and walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the privacy of his room.

      He sat down on his bed under the window and threw his towel angrily into the corner. It was the same after all, just like all the other families, maybe even worse; no one had ever treated him like a hired worker before, and at least you knew where you were with them. He got up and retrieved the towel. He was not going to stay on those terms, not for Mrs Thomas, not for anyone. He took out his dry clothes and pushed his wet trousers and shirt down to the bottom of his case. He would leave during the night; it was easier that way – no arguments, no explanations. He’d done it before. They could find another foster boy to work for them. This time tomorrow, he’d be back in the Home, and maybe Mrs Thomas would listen to him from now on.

      There was a knock on his door. ‘You in there, George?’ It was Storme. George pushed his suitcase under the bed. The latch clicked up. ‘You still look wet,’ she said. ‘Mum said to come down – tea’s ready.’ George nodded and stood up. Storme ventured further into the room. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you like it here? You liked it out in the barn this afternoon – I was watching you. I bet it was Tom. Did he say something? Don’t take any notice of him – he’s like that. You mustn’t take any notice – I don’t.’

      ‘I’m all right,’ said George.

      ‘Dad said he thought you were cross about something,’ she went on.

      ‘Well, I’m not!’ George spoke abruptly and Storme was surprised at the harshness in his voice. She led the way downstairs but said nothing more.

      All through tea George felt Storme’s eyes on him while the others talked among themselves. Occasionally he looked up at her to try to find out what she was thinking, but each time she looked away quickly. It was almost as if she knew what he was planning to do that night. Mr Dyer didn’t mention the money again and Tom spoke only once to him to ask him for the tomato ketchup for his fish fingers.

      ‘Been pouring now for some time,’ said Mr Dyer, turning round to look out of the window. ‘If it goes on like this, we’ll have a river down the bottom of the water-meadow instead of a trickle.’

      ‘We’ll have the fish back,’ said Mrs Dyer. ‘You ever been fishing, George?’ George shook his head and chased a pea across his plate until he trapped it up against his last fish finger. ‘We get brown trout and rainbow trout, all sorts down there,’ she said.

      The thunder crashed right above them, rattling the windows and bringing the conversation to a halt. The lights flickered nervously. They stopped eating and listened to the rain hammering down on the corrugated roof of the shed outside. It sounded like hailstones.

      ‘The calves won’t like this much,’ said Tom, going back to his food and dipping some bread in his tomato sauce. ‘And that mad Jemima – she’ll do her nut.’

      ‘Bound to be lightning. You can feel it in the air,’ said Mr Dyer, standing up. ‘I’m off to shut up the chickens.’

      He was right. There was lightning later that night. Lying on his bed, George watched the sky outside flash white. He knelt up and pressed his face against the teeming window pane above the bed and waited for the next flash. When it came, the countryside turned from black to a lead grey and then back to a deeper black. He watched for some time, wiping the window with his sleeve whenever it became steamed up. Then he climbed into his bed, still fully dressed, and waited. Mrs Dyer called goodnight up the stairs, and Storme came up in her green dressing-gown and matching slippers and said she’d see him in the morning. She waved at him from the door and was gone. He was alone.

      He planned to wait until the storm had passed its peak and everyone was asleep. He looked at his hands and examined the red weals and blisters of the day’s work. It could have been so good here, he thought. He leaned out of bed and arranged his shoes so that he could find them easily later on. He pulled his case out from underneath the bed and stood it up so that he could find the handle in the dark. He switched off the light and lay back. I should have taken that money, he thought; at least it would have paid my fare back to the Home. Now I’ve got to hitch all the way.