Binny in Secret by Hilary McKay

Author:Hilary McKay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Summer 1913, Part 5

Captain Scott’s ship, the Terra Nova, was back from the Antarctic. The newspapers were full of pictures.

Peter said he didn’t see what all the fuss was about.

“Why is everyone so shocked that they died?” he asked. “I’m not surprised at all.”

“Peter!” said Clarry.

“It happens,” said Peter. “People die. You don’t have to go to the Antarctic to do it. If they” (that was his father and his grandfather, both very enthusiastic and ganged up against him) “make me go to that boarding school, I’ll die.”

“What of?” asked Clarry practically.

“Of nothingness,” said Peter.

“What?”

“Nothingness! Nothingness! Nothingness!” shouted Peter. “I’ll die because there will be nothing to keep me alive. Like an animal in a zoo.”

“Rupe goes there, and he hasn’t died!” said Clarry furiously. “Why should you when Rupe didn’t?”

“Because I am not Rupe,” said Peter, limped across the room and slammed out of the door.

As the summer went on, Peter grew more and more bad-tempered and isolated. Often he made long journeys alone on his bicycle across the fields and the moors. Now and then he came back with butterflies.

Not always, thought Clarry. And not lots. One at a time. But she sometimes looked doubtfully at her brother.

“Do you find them dead?” she asked once.

“For goodness’ sake!” said Peter.

So Clarry understood that of course he found them dead.

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