The Roman and the Runaway by A. J. Braithwaite

Author:A. J. Braithwaite
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: england, young adult, families, schools, boys, contemporary fiction, museums, fathers and sons, orienteering, runaways, boarding schools, school stories, hertfordshire, manchester, aldbury

At the railway station Pagan bought a return ticket to London. She was planning to get off the train before it got that far but thought that buying a return to the capital would attract less attention than buying a ticket to anywhere else. The ticket put another big hole in her funds. There was a small food store in the station forecourt where Pagan purchased some basic supplies: enough food and water to sustain her for the next day.

The journey south seemed to go very quickly. Pagan had been planning this trip for some time and knew roughly where she was going to be pitching her tent. She got off the train at its last stop before London and then caught a smaller, local train. It, too, was going to London but she got off it long before it had left the countryside, at the small station she had identified from her forward planning on the Internet.

Pagan climbed the steps from the platform and crossed a small footbridge to the road above. There was no pavement and she had to walk along the edge of the narrow road. A few cars drove past her as fellow passengers left the station and drove home. She felt suddenly jealous of them and a sharp twinge of homesickness stabbed her as she thought of her mother and of the bed Pagan would not be sleeping in that night. A few tears of self-pity fell down her face before she pulled herself together and started looking out for footpath signs. A bridle path opened off the road on the left; Pagan followed that, relieved to get away from the traffic. After a few more minutes the path split, with a narrower footpath branching off to the left. It seemed to be heading towards a wooded slope in the distance. Pagan had decided that camping out in the woods would be a good idea, so she headed off in that direction.

It was now the early evening and Pagan was beginning to get very tired with the weight of the rucksack and tent on her back. The path was heading north and skirting the western edge of a large golf course, where Pagan could see a number of people pulling golf bags along behind them. Every few hundred metres there were large signs declaring that the golf course was the property of ‘Pritchards Country Club: Member's Only'. Pagan began to get irritated by the signs, which she felt were spoiling the scenery. She was also fairly sure that whoever had written them had failed to understand the correct use of the apostrophe. Her mother was always complaining about missing or unnecessary apostrophes and this thought renewed her feelings of homesickness and guilt.

The footpath curved round to head east and on the left the land became more densely wooded. The southern boundary continued to be defined by the golf course and its irritating signs. There appeared to be woodland on both sides of the path further on, where the golf course stopped.

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