Crow Boy Read Free

McKenzie announced that it was time to get off. Tom abandoned the game, noting as he did so that the phone’s battery was half gone.
    â€˜Great,’ he muttered. He shoved the phone into his damp blazer pocket and waited for the other kids to leave the coach before tagging reluctantly along behind them.

Two

    The tour started in the gift shop. The class stood around looking at a collection of pencils, fridge magnets, posters and assorted bits of multi-coloured plastic. Tom found himself by a pile of pewter keyrings depicting the tiny figure of a man in a long cloak and a flat-topped hat, carrying a long cane in one hand. He picked one up and took a closer look. Inexplicably, the figure seemed to have the head of a bird, with a long hooked beak and big, goggly eyes.
    â€˜Manky’s just found a model of his dad,’ sneered Gillies, moving past and deliberately jostling Tom with his shoulder. Then he flapped his bent arms up and down and made a clucking sound. Tom dropped the keyring back with the others and stood there, fuming silently, wondering why he felt so unable to stand up to Gillies and the other kids. They were just bullies, after all, and Tom would have had no problem telling them to get lost back in Manchester, but here he felt somehow powerless. So much was wrong with his life right now that he didn’t feel able to make the smallest change to anything. But, he thought, how satisfying it would be to turn around and punch Gillies on the nose.
    A door set into the wall opened and a young woman came out, dressed in olden-day clothing: a green dress with a white apron and a tightly-fitting cloth cap that drooped down on one side of her head. ‘It’s Wee Willie Winky!’ sniggered Gillies and Mr Mckenzie moved closer to shoot a warning look at him. The woman had obviously heard it all before. She waited calmly until the murmur of conversation had died down and then she performed a curtsy to the waiting children.
    â€˜Good morning,’ she said. ‘My name is Agnes Chambers; I’m a maid and I’ll be taking you down to Mary King’s Close. Please be very careful on the steps; we don’t want any accidents, do we? Now, if you’d like to follow me?’
    She turned and led the way through the open door and the class fell into line behind her. Once again, Tom waited till last, well aware how easy it would be for somebody to ‘accidentally’ barge into him on the steep stone steps that led down into the gloom. The group descended in silence, some of the girls clutching at each other nervously until they found themselves standing at the top of a long run of stone floor, which angled steeply downwards. On either side of them, rough plastered walls, sparsely lit by strategically placed lights, rose up sheer to a dark ceiling high above their heads. Lines hung with ratty looking washing were strung across the gap. ‘Agnes’ came to a halt and turned to look at the class. She waited for them to gather in front of her.
    â€˜You’re probably wondering what this place is,’ she said. ‘What we’re looking at here are the streets of the old city, underneath the Royal Mile, just as they would have looked in the 1600’s. Well . . . almost. If we’d been down here in the year 1645, we’d have been ankle-deep in raw sewage.’
    Tom felt Gillies’ elbow jam into his ribs.
    â€˜Just like home, eh Manky?’ he whispered and there were muted sniggers. Mr McKenzie shushed them to silence and Agnes continued.
    â€˜Everywhere, you would have heard the words ‘ Gardez Loo !’ which was the signal that somebody was about to empty a chamber pot out of a doorway or an upstairs window. You certainly didn’t want to be in the way when that happened.’
    â€˜See,’ smirked Gillies, ‘What did I tell you? Just like Manchester.’
    â€˜The sewage ran downhill from here until it reached the loch, so you can