Twist of Gold by Michael Morpurgo

Twist of Gold by Michael Morpurgo

Author:Michael Morpurgo [Reade, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849433228
Publisher: Oberon Books Ltd.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00


It’s night time – and the house is still and silent: the breathing and gentle snoring of SLEEPERS. SEAN and ANNIE tiptoe along the corridor.

ANNIE: (Whispering.) But it’s so ungrateful!

SEAN: (Whispering.) If we’re going, then it’s best to go now while everyone’s asleep. We can’t look them in the face and say we’re going, not after all their kindnesses. I couldn’t bear to see the hurt in their eyes.

They carry on creeping along the corridor – and bump into LIL’ LUKE.

LIL’ LUKE: (Whispering.) Miss Martha and Miss Henry said you might be goin’. They told me you weren’t to go without havin’ breakfast first. They’s waitin’ for you in the parlour.

They walk sheepishly into the dimly lit parlour where MISS MARTHA and MISS HENRY await.

MISS HENRY: Headin’ West?

SEAN nods.

The wagon trains roll further West each year, but there’s a lot of plain and prairie and desert to cross before you reach that other ocean all that way from ours. Takes a year or more to get there.

SEAN: A year?

MISS HENRY: It is three thousand miles across a wild continent peopled with wild and wicked men and marauding savages. Your father may well have made it. But many a thing can happen to a man between Boston and California.

SEAN: But we have to try.

MISS MARTHA: We know you do, Sean. But you will need a wagon and provisions, and someone to take you as far as the big river.

ANNIE: The big river?

MISS MARTHA: Yes. There you will find our brother, the Colonel.

ANNIE: We didn’t know you had a brother.

MISS HENRY: No. Well, Miss Martha and I prefer to forget. Our father left us a great fortune, from his furniture business here in Boston. Miss Martha and I invested our share wisely; but our brother had other ideas. He was a soldier of fortune, fought the English, the Mexicans, the Red Indians…well, now he has a ship of iniquity on the Ohio River.

ANNIE: What’s the O-hi-o-high-river? What is a ship of ink-willity?

MISS HENRY: Never you mind. Little Luke: you know you are a free man – have been since the day you escaped from slavery in the Deep South, all those years ago. So you do not have to do what I’m about to ask you –

LITTLE LUKE: No need to ask, Miss Henry; it’s the best an’ only way for these children to find their Papa. I’s already on my way.

MISS HENRY: The Colonel will be moored at Wheeling, Ohio. Hand them over into his safe-keeping. He’ll then sail them up the Missouri river to St Louis.

LIL’ LUKE: I surely will, Miss Henry. And I’ll return here by the Fall.

MISS MARTHA: And you can return here one day too children. This will always be your home.

SEAN: Thank you, Miss Martha.

MISS HENRY: Now get along. I’ve packed blankets and clothes and enough provisions to keep you going for a month or so.

ANNIE: Thank you, Miss Henry. (She gives MISS HENRY a big hug.)

MISS HENRY: (Tearful.) Now you’ve set me going. Be off!

MISS MARTHA: But take this – (She presents them with a gleaming black revolver.



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