No Friend of Mine by Ann Turnbull Page A

instantly. He ripped more pages and fed the fire. Yellow flames leapt up. He watched as Dan Dare turned brown like toast, curled over slowly, blackened and crumpled.
    The fire went out. He lit it again, adding branches from the store he and Ralph had made under the window ledge. He fed the flames alternately with sticks and paper until they roared and crackled and made a wall of heat.
    He began tearing pages faster and faster, screwing them up and tossing them on the fire. All his anger against Ralph went into the furious ripping and tearing.
    He stood back and watched the pyre. It was burning well now, and smoke was rising in a thick column full of ash and paper. He threw on the bird cards and the fire seethed and red worms wriggled in it and red-gold sparks flew upwards. Last of all he burned the letters. Ralph’s handwriting showed briefly before slipping into the red heart.
    When everything in the bag was gone he crouched by the fire and watched it burn down. The branches were damp, and once the brief flare from the paper was gone the flames died quickly, leaving blackened branches and a pile of powdery black and grey fragments.
    Lennie stood up and kicked the ashes, kicked away the stones that formed the hearth, kicked the dead branches. He found his tin by the wood stack. In it were pencils, marbles and conkers. He picked out the marbles he had won from Ralph and hurled them, one by one, into the undergrowth. Then he put the lid on the tin and dropped it into the hessian bag.
    He looked around the cottage. He had finished. He would go home and never come here again.
    Love Lane was cold. The bare branches of the trees rattled in a cold wind. A single leaf drifted down, a hazel, pale yellow, perfect, the sort of leaf that invited you to keep it. It lay before him, glowing like sunshine on the path. Deliberately, Lennie trod on it and ground it under his heel.
    He walked on. As he approached the Red Lion he heard boys’ voices raised in excitement – the football crowd. They had been playing, as usual, in the field behind the Rose and Crown, and were heading home for their dinner.
    Lennie shrank from the thought of encountering them. Things had been better at school lately, but he would never be part of this group, and today, especially, he felt isolated. It was too late to turn back; as he reached the wall of the Red Lion’s yard – the old ambush place – they swung around the corner into the street and spotted him: Bert Haines, Reggie Dean, Alan Revell, and about a dozen others, whooping and yelling, with muddy knees and hands and faces red with cold.
    Lennie tried to slip past, but Bert stopped him. He lolled with his hand against the wall, blocking Lennie’s way. “Here’s little Lennie, the bosses’ friend!” he said.
    “I’m not!” retorted Lennie, with more feeling than usual.
    “Been to see your posh friend, have you?” sneered Bert. “Down the woods?
We
know where you go.”
    “He’s not my friend,” said Lennie, trying to push past.
    Reggie snatched the bag from his hand and shook it upside down. The tin hit the ground and burst open, scattering its contents. Hands began grabbing. Alan got most of the conkers. Someone else pocketed the matches.
    “Leave him alone,” remonstrated a boy at the back of the crowd. “Don’t pinch his stuff.” But Lennie saw from the eagerness in most of the faces around him that they were hungry for a fight. He panicked, ducked under Bert’s arm, and ran. It was all they needed. They charged after him, yelling, surrounded him, and pinned him against the wall.
    Bert stuck his fist under Lennie’s nose. “Bosses’ friend,” he said.
    Lennie felt Bert’s knuckles bruising his lip and smelt the earth of the football field. He struggled. “Let me go.”
    “Had plenty of money to spend at the fair, didn’t you?” said Bert. “We saw you, going on all the rides, flashing your money about. Where did you get it, arse-licker?”
    “Ralph gave it to me,”