Read Online The Stolen Princess by Anne Gracíe - Free Book Online Page B

Monkey on account of how good I can climb, but me real name’s Jim.”
    â€œHow do you do, Jim. I am called Nicky.” He gave a slight bow.
    â€œCoo, posh, aren’t ya?” said Jim with a grin. He extended a filthy hand with black-rimmed nails, and Nicky gingerly shook it. “Pleased to meet you, Nicky. Well, go on, get them boots off.”
    Nicky sat down to pull off his boots. Jim watched curiously. “Gimpy leg, eh?”
    Nicky didn’t respond, but the shame crept back.
    â€œMe da had a gimpy leg, too, sort of. Shark bit half his leg off. Didn’t stop Da, but. Got himself a peg leg, didn’t he?” Jim said cheerfully. “Well, you get on with fetching your slipper. I gotta get on. I made a real find this morning.” He disappeared behind a scraggly bush and reappeared lugging a battered and muddy portmanteau.
    Nicky had no trouble recognizing it. “That’s our portmanteau!”
    â€œIt’s mine. I saw it first. Rules of salvage.” Jim said and heaved it onto the handcart.
    â€œBut it belongs to me.”
    Jim snorted rudely. “My arse it does! I found it on the beach this morning, and I hauled it all the way up here, so it’s mine!”
    â€œBut it contains all the possessions Mama and I have!”
    â€œGood try, but I wasn’t born yesterday. Finders keepers. You get the slipper, I get this.” He pulled out a piece of string to tie the portmanteau to the cart.
    Nicky ran forward and tried to pull the portmanteau off him. “No! It’s not yours. You can’t have it!”
    Jim shoved Nicky backward hard and stood over him with clenched fists. “Try and stop me.”
    â€œVery well.” Nicky scrambled to his feet and put up his fists, ready to fight the bigger boy. He’d had lessons in the art of pugilism. He moved closer and jabbed at the boy. In return, Jim swung a punch, then followed it with a hard kick to Nicky’s bad leg. With a cry of pain, Nicky went sprawling in the mud.
    As he struggled to stand again, his fingers encountered a stone, and remembered Mr. Renfrew’s advice to his mother. Seizing the stone, he ran at the boy, yelling at the top of his voice, and hit him hard on the nose.
    There was a horrid sound, the boy’s dirty face blossomed with blood and he fell to the ground. Nicky stared in horror, and dropped the stone. He had not meant to hurt the boy, just stop him from stealing the portmanteau.
    â€œWhat the devil is going on!” Mr. Renfrew exclaimed from behind. “Who is that?
    Nicky’s lip trembled. “His name is Jim, and I think I have killed him!”

Four
    C allie woke slowly, coming to consciousness as if gradually floating to the surface of a very deep lake. She awoke feeling safe…cared for.
    Stupid. Dreaming foolish dreams again. Painful dreams. Dreams that made her ache inside. Dreams for girls , not a woman like Callie. She had done with such things. She knew better now.
    She had the love of her son. That should be enough for anyone. And Tibby loved her, too, she knew. A son and a friend; more than many people had, she told herself.
    She reached out to check Nicky as she did countless times in the night. These days she always slept with him in touching distance. She did not dare to let him sleep alone.
    Her fingers only found sheets, cold and empty.
    Nicky! Her eyes flew open and she sat up. Scarcely stopping to fling a rug around her shoulders for modesty’s sake, she ran down the stairs in bare feet.
    â€œWhere’s my son?” Callie burst into the kitchen. “What have you done with him?”
    â€œYour boy?” Mrs. Barrow looked up from the pot she was stirring. “He’ll be off in the stables or sommat, I expect.” She smiled at Callie. “No need to ask you how you slept. Like death warmed through, you were last night and here you are, blooming and—”
    â€œWhere have they taken him?” Callie