Read Online Eight Days of Luke by Diana Wynne Jones - Free Book Online Page A

neighborhood. Luke was one of those who could not pass a yard, an old gate, or an empty house without seeing if they could get in. They found a dozen splendid places like this and returned tired, grubby and happy at David’s bedtime. David went in through the front door. Luke swung himself up the creepers to David’s window. David fell asleep watching Luke’s doodles go, in a procession of dragons, across his bedroom wall.
    Luke had said he was going, but he was asleep on the end of David’s bed when David woke up the next morning. He had wrapped himself in the carpet and looked very comfortable.
    David sat up gently, not to disturb him, and spent some while looking at Luke’s sleeping face, wondering who and what Luke really was. He was very freckly. The burn on his face had quite gone now, which David thought was odd. He had an idea that burns usually took longer to heal. Another odd thing was that, now Luke was asleep, it was quite impossible to tell how old or how young he was. He might have been older than Cousin Ronald or younger than David. David thought first one age, then another, as he looked, until he remembered that, if he was certain of anything, it was that the usual rules did not apply to Luke. He wished Luke would wake up.
    But Luke slept peacefully on, while David got up and put on his jeans. David had to leave him there when he went downstairs, because, in order not to have put on smart, prickly clothes, he had to have breakfast before Aunt Dot came down. He listened for the moment when Mrs. Thirsk went along to the dining room with the toast and dashed downstairs then. He meant to take toast back to his room and share it with Luke. But luck was against him. Cousin Ronald was in the dining room, waiting for his porridge.
    â€œIf this new man doesn’t turn up this morning,” he told David, for lack of anyone better to tell, “I shall write to the papers. Sit down, can’t you, boy.”
    David had to sit down, and to eat six slices of toast, while Cousin Ronald told him about England’s position in the Test and all about how hard it was to get gardeners. Then, just as David was hoping to be able to go at last, Cousin Ronald picked up the newspaper.
    â€œ Typists trapped on roof ,” he read. “Oh, here’s your fire, David!” David felt his face go red. For it was his fire, exactly. “ Thirty thousand pounds of damage! ” Cousin Ronald read severely. David shifted on his chair. “ Cause of fire still a mystery , I see,” said Cousin Ronald.
    At that moment, David heard Mrs. Thirsk going heavily upstairs, and he knew she was on her way to tidy his room. He wriggled all over his chair. Surely Luke would have the sense to climb out of the window or hide in the bathroom? What Mrs. Thirsk would say to Aunt Dot and Aunt Dot would say to David about boys whose friends slept on the ends of their bed wrapped in good carpets did not bear thinking of.
    Luckily, Cousin Ronald happened to glance out of the window. He jumped up irritably. “There’s that blessed man at work on the dahlias already!” he said. “Why couldn’t he come to the door as instructed?”
    â€œExcuse me,” David said thankfully and bolted, out of the room and upstairs two at a time.
    His worst fears were realized. He heard Mrs. Thirsk’s voice from his room, and then Luke’s. David set his teeth ready to take trouble and pushed open the door. Both of them turned to him. Luke looked harassed, almost frightened, but Mrs. Thirsk did not seem as angry as she ought to have been.
    â€œDavid,” she said, “here’s your friend fell asleep waiting for you, you greedy boy. You ought to be ashamed. Now just you take poor Luke downstairs and give him a nice bowl of porridge and some toast.”
    â€œYes,” said David. “Yes, of course.” He realized that Luke had worked another miracle, this time on Mrs. Thirsk. She was