Ash Road by Ivan Southall Page B

instinctively to be his enemies—and by Graham. Graham was weak with fright and gasped aloud. If only they had walked! Now their guilt was declared so positively they might as well have shouted it from the rooftops. Innocent people didn’t leap like scalded cats across garden beds.
    But it was Peter who ran. The boys were so big; they looked so strong. He bolted, afraid that they were going to set upon him. Peter feared violence more than anything; he would go to any lengths to avoid a fight. He didn’t stop running until he reached the road, and when he looked back the three boys were not to be seen. The only person in sight was someone who looked like Stevie, a long way up the hill, waving to him.
    But the bigger boys were still there; they had gone to earth like frightened rabbits. They couldn’t see Peter any more than he could see them. The roaring trees along the road and the path and round about them concealed them from one another, but only visually. In the minds of the three boys every tossing leaf was a spying eye, an accusing eye, and the difficulty of covering up their guilt was beginning to look overwhelming. They were so dog-tired that the situation was beyond them. They couldn’t think straight, not even clever Harry could think straight, and Wallace’s mind was a frightened blank waiting for a lead. Running away from the fire had only proved their guilt; it hadn’t made them safer at all. And it wasn’t that Graham had meant to start the fire; it had been such an innocent accident. But who’d believe them now? All the alibis they had invented seemed so feeble and so futile. Everyone would know now that they hadn’t spent the night at the Pinkards’, and if they couldn’t face up to a few unsuspecting children how were they to face suspicious parents or angry officials.
    Graham felt evil and deceitful and full of remorse because he had failed to help that poor girl willingly. She had looked such a nice girl. And why would an undersized boy of about thirteen take such fright? Graham was relieved that the boy had taken fright, but it still didn’t make sense. Were all Graham’s feelings beginning to show? ‘What do you think?’ he said, in a half-choked voice. ‘Will I give myself up? It’ll be so much easier if I do.’
    â€˜Of course you won’t give yourself up!’ Harry’s were angry words and Graham wanted them to be. He wanted Harry to drive the thought away, to kill it. ‘We can’t worry ourselves about a kid. He got a fright, that’s all, same as us. We haven’t done murder or anything. The way you act anyone would think we had.’
    But they had lost the opportunity of escape: the girls had come to the side of the house: in sight of them and in hearing range if voices were raised. Perhaps the boys could still walk away as Graham had wanted to do in the first place, but that would be more cold-blooded now than it would have been then. Wallace said with a touch of bravado, ‘Why should they guess anythin’? Why should they find out anythin’ if we don’t tell them?’
    â€˜But that kid,’ said Graham. ‘He acted like he knew something. He was scared stiff.’
    â€˜He got a fright,’ repeated Harry, belligerently. ‘So did we. He’s gone now, anyway. I bet he hasn’t stopped running yet.’
    â€˜Well, what about our packs?’
    â€˜What about them?’
    â€˜They’re up on the road for everyone to look at.’
    â€˜Yeh,’ said Wallace. ‘You blokes see to the girl. I’ll get rid of the packs. I’ll hide ’em somewhere.’
    â€˜Let me,’ said Graham breathlessly.
    Harry looked at him, perhaps too closely, but believing he understood Graham’s earnest desire to continue avoiding people if he could. ‘Okay. You do it. But remember where you hide them.’
    Graham, trembling from head to foot, headed