The Secret Message Read Free Page A

you think so, Freddy? We can still see each other. We can meet in secret. I’d like that.’
    The colour was returning to Freddy’s cheeks as he stood to look Giles in the face. ‘I won’t tell a living soul. Besides, if I say anything to Ma, she’ll box my ears for coming on the Squire’s land.’
    ‘In that case,’ Giles said, offering his hand, ‘we’d better shake. As a pact. We’ll swear an oath to be loyal to each other and always keep our friendship a secret. We must never tell anyone without each other’s permission.’
    They shook hands firmly and their promise was sealed. Forever.

S ECRET M EETINGS
    Freddy and Giles became the closest of friends – growing up together and sharing their deepest thoughts whenever school holidays allowed. Their meetings were often at night in the stables or in the hay meadow at dawn where they played, chatted endlessly and watched the soaring skylarks in the clouds.
    They sent each other coded letters, left in asecret gap behind a plank in the stable. It was Giles who came up with the code to use.
    ‘Seeing as you’re mad about skylarks, why don’t we learn these lines from a poem called
The Skylark
?’ He showed Freddy a page from a poetry book:
    Opening their golden caskets to the sun,
    The buttercups make schoolboys eager run,
    To see who shall be first to pluck the prize –
    Up from their hurry, see, the skylark flies
    ‘All we have to do is number the lines and letters, and we can make secret messages that no one else will understand if they find them. So long as we don’t need the letters J, Q, V, X and Z we’ll be fine. So, to write the word
Freddy
all I have to do is find an F, which is in line 4 and the third letter. So F is 4:3. Your whole name will be: 4:3, 4:4, 1:3, 1:16, 1:16, 4:16.
    ‘What do you think?’
    Freddy leapt up excitedly. ‘It’s like our own special, secret magic!’
    Their coded letters and covert meetings stopped during term time – but the holidays became their happiest times of all. When Giles’s Mama discovered one of Freddy’s coded notes in the parlour, she insisted Giles explained to her what it meant.
    ‘Just some numbers, Mama. It’s a sort of puzzle I’m inventing, that’s all.’
    Her icy stare convinced him she didn’t believe him. ‘You should never spend time on such nonsense. You must study your Latin and Greek, so go to your room immediately.’

    Christmas 1913 brought few meetings, as deep snow threatened to reveal their footprints across the stable yard. With Freddy andGordon now working at a dairy in the next village (his mother wouldn’t let him ask the Squire for a job), there were fewer chances to meet up. So, just before Giles was due to return to school, they braved a blizzard to meet at midnight in one of the outbuildings. Clutching lanterns and gifts, they huddled in the straw while icy wind rattled the bolted door.
    ‘These presents are for Christmas, but also our fourteenth birthday,’ Giles began. Freddy looked embarrassed. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got any money for proper presents, so I’ve got you these. I hope you like them.’
    Giles tore off the tissue paper to reveal two pictures and a little wooden carved dog.
    ‘That’s my most precious thing in the world,’ Freddy said. ‘But I want you to have it. Our Pa made it and Ma wanted me to have it – but I’ve enjoyed it for fourteen years, so nowit’s your turn for the next fourteen. You can give it back then!’
    Giles was speechless as he turned the little carving around in his fingers. ‘Thank you so much, Freddy. I will treasure this. And this little painting of a bird – it’s perfect. You can draw and paint much better than me. Just look at this lovely brush work and the way you’ve coloured the feathers so delicately. And this flower looks so real …’
    Freddy grinned proudly. ‘I’m glad you like it. I made the brushes. The cat’s missing a few chunks off his tail! I also made the colour washes myself from soil