The Monsters of Rookhaven by Pádraig Kenny

Author:Pádraig Kenny
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Freddie

The panicked hammering on the front door came in the early hours of the morning. Freddie jolted awake with his heart pounding. He’d been dreaming of James again. They’d been driving past some fields with their father, and James was smiling and laughing and telling him a story. Freddie was laughing so hard tears came to his eyes. He turned to see his father at the wheel. He was laughing also, and the green fields whizzed by and the world was bright and filled with promise and Freddie wanted it to last forever . . .

But then came that panicked knocking. Freddie hopped out of bed, immediately slathered in sweat. He opened his bedroom window, which was above the butcher’s shop and faced right out onto the main street.

‘Hello?’ he said.

A short portly figure stepped back from the door. It was Mr Carswell, one of the local farmers.

‘Freddie! Get your dad. Something’s happened.’

Freddie woke his father. It was like watching a great balding giant lumbering out of the bed in the dark. Freddie’s mother stirred and his father assured her that there was nothing to worry about.

Freddie let Mr Carswell in while his father got dressed. Mr Carswell had a bushy lion’s mane of a beard while what was left of his grey hair stood out from the top of his head in corkscrews. Today his agitation had made his hair even more askew. He looked out of the window, patting the knuckles of one hand fretfully against the palm of the other while Freddie watched him.

‘What is it, Bill?’

Freddie’s father loomed in the doorway, like a great hulking shadow hewn from the very night. Freddie hadn’t even heard him approach. Mr Carswell looked at him and licked his lips.

‘Something terrible’s happened, Frank.’

Mr Fletcher took the farmer aside for a moment. They had a whispered conversation out of earshot, but Freddie could tell by his father’s whole demeanour that something very serious was going on. The only words he caught were ‘They wouldn’t! We have an agreement!’ from his father. Freddie’s mind was suddenly a whirl as he considered what those words meant.

They drove to the farm in silence, following Mr Carswell’s car. Freddie’s father planned one day for his son to take over his seat on the council. That meant Freddie needed to go with him whenever there was a crisis of ‘this sort’. ‘For experience,’ his father had said. ‘This sort’ usually meant something that was linked to the House of Rookhaven. After all, that was the council’s main reason for existing, to deal with all matters pertaining to their agreement with the Family. It was a thought that made Freddie feel uneasy about what now lay ahead.

As the road slipped by, he found himself thinking about that dream again, and how they’d been driving down a similar country road blessed with sunlight, and how James had been laughing and his father had been smiling . . .

‘What are you smiling about?’ his father said sharply. He’d asked the question without taking his eyes off the road.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.