The Road of Bones

The Road of Bones Read Free

Book: The Road of Bones Read Free
Author: Anne Fine
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dare take it.
    Furious, Grandmother spat an insult back. ‘Easy enough to be Man of Thunder behind your counter along with all the food. Try joining us here in thequeue. You’ll soon find out you’re nothing but a common cur!’
    He thrust his greasy face closer, oozing threat. ‘Are you dissatisfied with what your country has to offer you?’
    Grandmother stiffened. Perhaps she sensed what I saw – that people who’d been standing in line behind her in the face-biting wind for two full hours were suddenly melting away as if they’d that very instant decided their family had no need of food that day. Coming to her senses, Grandmother grabbed my arm and moved as quickly as her stiff legs could carry her, not towards home, but up one alley and down another, and in and out of courtyards, till she was sure no one was following.
    Then, gasping until she breathed more easily, she raised her wrinkled monkey face to look me up and down as if to check I really were no longer the little boy whose hand had to be held the whole way home.
    â€˜Go on ahead,’ she told me.
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜â€œWhy?
Why
?”’ Sheer irritation made her slap out at me. ‘Must you always be wise as a tree full of owls? Stop asking questions! Do as I say! Go home.’
    I didn’t argue. The way led past Alyosha’s house. He’d been my friend as long as I could remember.We had a thousand ways of passing time together. In summer we chewed stalks on the canal bank. In winter he let me take turns on his sled with him and his sister. Always, at school, we fought to sit side by side. Ordered so firmly home, I didn’t think I’d dare knock on his family’s door. But maybe he’d be in the street, out on some errand, and we could spend a bit of time down at the river watching the breaking ice float past in giant lumps.
    He wasn’t there. I kicked a stone past his door, and back again. But in the end I gave up and hurried home, and it must have been a couple of hours or more before it even struck me that Grandmother must have sent me on ahead for fear the shopkeeper would call for the guards. If they were looking for the pair of malcontents the shopkeeper had described, all they would come across was an idle lad trailing his way home from school and, a street or so over, some ancient biddy trudging back all alone from the market.
    Never before had I seen Grandmother so pale from a spat with a shopkeeper. Or scurrying down alleys. But still I didn’t realize how much the world around us was changing, or how our lives were shrinking by the day, until the evening I slapped my last ace down on hers and, for the first time ever, gotto crow back at her the boast she always made the moment her cards trumped mine:
    â€˜For some, the crystal stair! For others, just the road of bones!’
    My mother smiled. ‘Has Yuri grown up enough to beat you at last? Or are your brains going soft?’
    â€˜Neither,’ snapped Grandmother. ‘It’s just that, with the boy being cooped up so much, he’s turning into a cardsharp.’
    I looked up. Sure enough, the shutters were open to catch the last of the evening breeze. It was still light. Why wasn’t I outside, racing along the canal bank with Alyosha, or looking for mischief up back streets?
    Because no one roamed now. It wasn’t just the splatters of gunfire heard from other streets, or even the occasional dull crump of explosions echoing across the city. It was a creeping sense of fear that had turned all our lives into one long, long wait.
    And fed suspicion. I sensed my parents no longer trusted my blank face when they were whispering. I noticed their friends stopped coming to the house, and I was no longer welcome knocking on other people’s doors, even Alyosha’s. But though I must have asked a host of questions over that long, dreary autumn, my parents’ answers were evasive andguarded. And,

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