Noah Barleywater Runs Away Read Free

a moment, after all. And if the cat was going to die … well, cats died, and that was the end of it. His own cat had died a few months before and they’d given her a funeral and felt very sad about it but got on with their lives afterwards. His mother had even written a song on her guitar about the cat and played it as they covered the grave back over. She was good at doing things like that, Noah thought, smiling to himself. Not allowing sad things to ruin a day.
    ‘Who are you anyway?’ asked the man, leaning forward and sniffing the boy carefully, as if he was a bowl of whipped cream that had been left on the sideboard for too long and might have gone off. ‘I don’t know you, do I? What business have you got here? We don’t like strangers in our village, you know. Go back to where you came from, why don’t you, and leave us all in peace!’
    ‘I’m Noah Barleywater,’ said Noah, ‘and I was only passing through because—’
    ‘Not interested!’ snapped the man, taking a firm hold of his wheelbarrow again and hurrying onhis way, complaining loudly as he went.
    The people don’t seem very friendly here
, thought Noah as he watched the man scurry away.
And I really thought this might be the right place for me to start over.
    But the incident left a sour taste in his mouth and from then on, as he walked through the village, he became convinced that everyone was staring at him and preparing to lift him clean off the ground and throw him in jail. And just then he caught sight of another man, of regular height, sitting on a bench reading a newspaper and shaking his head sadly, as if the continuing business of the world was a source of great disappointment to him.
    ‘Heavens above!’ cried the man suddenly, crumpling the edges of the newspaper in his fist as he stared in disbelief at the article he was reading. ‘Oh my giddy aunt!’
    Noah stared at him, and hesitated for only a moment before walking over and sitting down beside him, wondering what the man found so astonishing.
    ‘That’s shocking,’ said the man then, shaking his head. ‘Absolutely shocking.’
    ‘What’s that?’ asked Noah.
    ‘It says here that a quantity of apples was stolen from a tree in —’ Here he named the first village that Noah had passed through that morning. ‘
The tree
,’ read the man, ‘
was taking up its regular morning position when a young ruffian appeared out of nowhereand threw himself upon it, stealing three apples and causing a fourth to fall off a branch and become bruised upon the ground. Both tree and apples are being taken into hospital while their injuries are assessed. Doctors say the next twenty-four hours will be crucial
.’
    Noah frowned. Although this news report bore a curious resemblance to his own adventure earlier in the morning, that had taken place no more than a couple of hours before, so it could hardly be possible that it was already being reported in the papers. And was it even news? His father said they printed nothing in those rags anyway, just a lot of pointless gossip about a bunch of people nobody really cared about.
    ‘Is that today’s paper?’ asked Noah suspiciously.
    ‘Yes, of course,’ said the man. ‘Well, it’s the evening edition but I got an early copy.’
    ‘But it’s only morning time,’ said Noah.
    ‘Which is what makes it an early copy,’ said the man testily, turning his head to look at the boy, before putting his glasses on for a moment and then taking them off again. ‘Good heavens!’ he gasped, his voice catching in fright.
    Noah stared at him, unsure what had made him appear so frightened, but as he did so he caught sight of a drawing that was placed beneath the story of the apple thief. An eight-year-old boy, short for his age but with a fine head of hair. Taking a great bite out of an apple.
But how?
he wondered. There hadn’t been anyone around to see him. A largeblock of text was printed in a bold font under the picture:
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