Read Online Inside the Worm by Robert Swindells - Free Book Online

‘You’re joking.’
    â€˜No I’m not. I know Fliss Morgan. She’s got a stubborn streak. You and Lisa have been making it pretty obvious we don’t want her around. I reckon she’ll stick, just to spite us.’
    Ellie-May sighed. ‘I hope you’re right, Trot. I want to do the park again like last night. It was the most fantastic feeling I’ve ever had.’
    â€˜Well that’s what I mean!’ cried Gary. ‘That feeling. It comes over you and you can’t help what you do. It’s – awesome.’
    â€˜Yeah!’ Trot smiled dreamily. ‘Maybe next time we’ll run into somebody – somebody we can scare.’
    â€˜If there
is
a next time,’ muttered Lisa.
    The four spent the afternoon in a state of suspense, but nothing happened. Fliss avoided their glances in class and kept well away from them at break, but nobody was summoned to the Deputy Head’s office and Mrs Evans gave no sign she was aware of anything amiss. The only sticky moment came at home-time, when Mrs Evans found Lisa carrying part of the worm through the girls’ cloakroom.
    â€˜Where are you going with that, Lisa?’
    â€˜Taking it home, Miss.’
    â€˜What on earth for?’
    Lisa’s brain raced. ‘Er – safety, Miss.’
    â€˜Safety? What d’you mean, safety?’
    â€˜Schools get broken into, Miss. We wouldn’t want vandals smashing up our worm.’
    â€˜I see. So you intend carting the whole thing backwards and forwards every time there’s a rehearsal?’
    â€˜Yes, Miss.’
    â€˜Hmmm. Well, rather you than me, Lisa, that’s all I can say. Off you go.’ She went out on to the step and watched for a moment as Lisa joined Gary and the other two in the yard and the four of them went off up the driveway with their burdens. She and the Deputy Head had undertaken not to interfere in the play – it was to be an independent Year Eight effort, and if the children had decided to keep some of their props at home, so be it. Lisa’s reasoning seemed decidedly odd, but then a lot of the things children do seem odd to adults, and Mrs Evans supposed there could be no harm in what they were doing.
    Which just goes to show how wrong you can be.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
    HUGHIE ACKROYD HATED kids. Until his retirement four years earlier he’d been a crossing keeper on the railway, and it seemed to him that he’d spent half his life chasing kids off the line and the other half making them stay off. The only thing he’d liked about his job was the bit of garden which went with the keeper’s cottage. He’d kept that garden so beautiful that travellers in passing trains used to go ‘Ooh!’ and ‘Aah!’ as they whizzed by, and some of them would look back with their faces pressed against the window till Hughie’s crossing was out of sight.
    Now that he was a pensioner, old Hughie didn’t have the garden any more. He and his wife lived in an old folks’ bungalow. The grass outside was mownby the council, which also sent young men to tend the flowerbeds. Bored out of his skull, Hughie had taken an allotment on a nearby block and started growing his own vegetables. He’d turned out to be as good with vegetables as he used to be with flowers, and his leeks sometimes won prizes at local shows, which made him happy.
    What didn’t make him happy was this. One of the plots on the block was derelict. It had been derelict for many years and had become a jungle of couch-grass, weeds and brambles. This abandoned plot happened to be right next to Hughie’s immaculate one, and in one corner of it stood a dilapidated greenhouse. This greenhouse had an old iron stove inside, and a bunch of kids sometimes showed up on wet weekends to light this stove and mess around in the greenhouse. They weren’t doing any harm, except that occasionally, when there was nobody about, they’d