Water Street by Patricia Reilly Giff

Author:Patricia Reilly Giff [Giff, Patricia Reilly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-54905-1
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2006-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

{THOMAS}

Thomas helped Pop into his bedroom, giving him a little push so that Pop fell across the bed, asleep. He undid Pop's shirt collar, and his shoes, and stood there, waiting to be sure he wasn't going to open his eyes again.

Then he went to the apartment door and looked down. Bird was coming up the stairs. He knew she'd been in the basement. He could see by her face she hadn't found Hughie. Of course she hadn't. Where was he?

Thomas took a look back at Pop's bedroom and waited until Bird had closed the door. He went down the stairs and let himself out. It had stopped raining but there was a cold wind coming through the streets; everything looked closed, doors shut, curtains pulled over windows. Almost winter. Thomas put his chin down to feel the warmth of his jacket collar.

He'd start at Gallagher's.

A cop was on the corner of Fulton, and he waited until the officer turned down one of the side streets. Had he been one of the ones banging out that trouble earlier? If the policeman had seen Thomas, he would have been sure to ask what he was doing outside at that hour of the night. And what could Thomas have told him? That he was used to going after his father, and this wasn't much different. The cop would have sent him home with a smack of his night-stick across Thomas's arm.

Gallagher's seemed quiet, the lamps flickering into the empty street, and only a few men were on the bar stools inside. He went around the back; light was spilling out from the window into the garden. Hughie was sitting against the tree trunk just as Thomas had the day he and Pop moved to Water Street.

Thomas wasn't sure what to say. He didn't know if Hughie would be angry that he was looking for him. But Hughie moved over a little to give him room.

Thomas wanted to say how cold it was there, the dampness of the earth coming through his clothes, but instead he sat there quietly watching Hughie run his hand over the bark of the tree and then the wet grass.

“Strange,” Hughie said. “In Ireland my mother and father had it all, fields, and water running over rocks in the stream. They had a goat, and a pig, and hens. Wouldn't that be paradise if you could have it?” He shook his head. “If only the potatoes hadn't failed.”

Pop had told him about that, the vegetables sold to pay the rent, and a field of wasted potatoes, black and oozing, so they were all starving.

“And over in New Jersey there are farms to be had and food to be grown, but not enough money in my pocket to get where I belong.” He stared at Thomas. “What am I telling you this for? Don't say a word about my babbling to Bird, will you?”

“I won't,” Thomas said. “Of course I won't.”

They sat there for a while; then Hughie

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