No Shelter from Darkness Read Online Free Page B

and empty. She had wished for rain to mask her dry face.
    It wasn't until she returned to the Wade's empty house and retreated to Oliver's unfamiliar bedroom that the tears began to fall. The poor runt had been kicked out into his mother's bedroom, making Mary feel like a fuss had been made and furthering her feeling of displacement. Now, however, it was the only place she had.
    But like everyone else who'd suffered through similar tragedies by now, Mary had to get on with it. Her skin would have to become a bit thicker.
    Royston Street ran from almost opposite the Wade's house to Bonner Street, where fifty yards down to the right was the school. Like most streets in the East End, it was lined with Victorian terraces. But war damage was everywhere. Occasional gaps, jagged and full of rubble, split one terrace into three. The look and smell of the place bespoke poverty and overcrowding that still lingered from the last century. Everyone who lived here knew that this end of the city was considered by everyone else in London as the worst part, blamed on the docks of the Thames to the south. But it was home, and had a bigger sense of community than anywhere else.
    Yet Mary still felt alone.
    Turning onto the street of her school, lagging three paces, she felt butterflies begin dancing in her stomach at the thought of the attention she'd be faced with. Through Oliver, people would know what had happened; kids would sooner ask him than Beth. It wasn't that Beth was unkind or untoward—quite the opposite, in fact. But Mary, having been her best friend for as long as she could remember, seemed to be the only one who had disregarded her roots. Pretty though she was, Beth's foreign appearance and obvious adoption provided perfect fuel for insults and sufficient justification for bullying.
    Mary's regret for ending the only friendship Beth had came flooding back, tussling with the anxiousness for the day ahead. The three of them fell into step with other straggling children at the gates of the school. The grief over her mother took a back seat for the moment, but Mary suspected that it would be a silent passenger for a long time to come.
    Probably forever.

    *   *   *

    â€œMary?”
    She was on her way out of the gates, amid a flood of relief that she'd gotten through the day, when the familiar voice called from behind. Her step faltered and she closed her eyes in a curse, but then tentatively proceeded to walk, hoping that Kevin Gibson would take the hint.
    â€œMary!”
    He didn't.
    In the classroom, he sat on the other side of the gender divide, and at break times the girls’ rooftop playground ensured no intrusions from the boys. She should have realized that after school was the time she ought to have worried about. She slowed to a halt and waited as Gibson trundled up to her side.
    â€œAll right, Mary? You left this.” He held out to her a familiar tattered gray box.
    Mary's mind had hardly been in the game all day, and with a quiet tut she took the box and hung it around her neck. Looking into the fair-haired boy's narrow brown eyes, she smiled gently. “Ta.”
    Gibson smiled back. He was about the same height as Mary, though undoubtedly still growing, whereas she was already her late mother's height. He was a little older than her, turning fourteen sometime this year during the summer holiday. That was only a couple of months away. He'd be leaving school then, unlike Mary who was stuck here for another eight months.
    â€œI heard ‘bout your mum. Sorry.”
    Mary nodded shallowly.
    â€œIt was a bit of a heavy weekend, weren't it?”
    â€œYeah,” she replied, quietly. She just wanted to walk away, though ironically she actually quite liked Gibson. But now simply wasn't the time. “I'd better …” Turning away slightly, she let her actions speak for her.
    â€œOh yeah, sure. Um, well I could walk you home, if you like?”
    Mary would have liked … a week ago.