Peter and the Starcatchers by Ridley Pearson EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Ridley Pearson
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
THE NEVER LAND
THE TIRED OLD CARRIAGE, pulled by two tired old horses, rumbled onto the
wharf, its creaky wheels bumpety-bumping on the uneven planks, waking
Peter from his restless slumber. The carriage interior, hot and stuffy, smelled
of five smallish boys and one largish man, none of whom was keen on
bathing.
Peter was the leader of the boys, because he was the oldest. Or maybe
he wasn’t. Peter had no idea how old he really was, so he gave himself
whatever age suited him, and it suited him to always be one year older than
the oldest of his mates. If Peter was nine, and a new boy came to St.
Norbert’s Home for Wayward Boys who said he was ten, why, then, Peter
would declare himself to be eleven. Also, he could spit the farthest. That
made him the undisputed leader.
As leader, he made it his business to keep his eye on things in general.
And he was not happy with the way things were shaping up today. The boys
had been told only that they were going away on a ship. As much as Peter
didn’t like where he’d been living for the past seven years, the longer this
carriage ride lasted, the scarier “away” sounded in his mind.
They’d set out from St. Norbert’s in the dark, but now Peter could see
grayish daylight through the small, round coach window on his side. He
looked out, squinting, and saw a dark shape looming by the wharf. It looked
to Peter like a monster, with tall spines coming out of its back. Peter did not
like the idea of walking into the belly of that monster.
“Is that it?” he asked. “The ship we’re going on?”
He ducked then, avoiding the hamlike right fist of Edward Grempkin.
He was always keenly aware of where this fist was; he’d been dodging it
for seven years now. Grempkin, second in command at St. Norbert’s Home
for Wayward Boys, was a man of numerous rules—many of them invented
right on the spot, all of them enforced by means of a swift cuff to the ear.
He paid little attention to whose ear his fist actually landed on; all the boys
were rule-breakers, as far as Grempkin was concerned.
This time the fist clipped an ear belonging to a boy named Thomas, who
had been slumped, half asleep, in the carriage next to the ducking Peter.
“OW!” said Thomas.
“Do not end a sentence with a preposition,” said Mr. Grempkin. He was
also the grammar teacher at St. Norbert’s.
“But I didn’t … OW!” said Thomas, upon being cuffed a second time
by Grempkin, who had a strict rule against back talk.
For a moment, the carriage was silent, except for the bumpety-bump.
Then Peter tried again.
“Sir,” he said, “is that our ship?” He kept an eye on the fist, in case ship
turned out to be a preposition.
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