For Rye Gavin Gardiner (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

search had eventually led him around the cylindrical perimeter of the clock tower and out of sight.

The girl had looked at her mother, the woman’s forced smile firmly in place, holding the five-year-old Noah’s hand as Mrs Caldwell shrieked in varying degrees at the particular aspects of the boy’s face she found most ADORABLE. Then at her father, solemnly nodding as Mr Oakley the pharmacist had congratulated him on another fine service, another fine service indeed. The girl decided the coast was clear and went after Jazz.

She followed the stone wall which eventually jutted out, marking the border between the church and the clock tower. She arched her neck and gazed up the tower, a runway of stone stretching into the sky. At the end of the runway lay the great clock embedded into its surface, its cryptic Roman numerals glimmering in the sun. She imagined running along the stony road and jumping onto the clock. What would happen? Well, that would depend on whether or not she could clear the narrow window.

Window? She’d never noticed any window before. Wonder what’s inside?

She followed Jazz’s trail around the back of the tower and found him scratching something in the stone. The sun was high, but not high enough to penetrate this dark corner. Shadows bathed the kitty’s new haunt, rendering the thing he was scratching barely visible. Jazz spotted her as she approached – he knew he’d been rumbled – and darted off like a cat out of Hell. She edged closer, peering through the shadows at the focus of his attention. It was a shoulder-high wooden hatch built into the stone. Whether or not she knew it at the time, her search was over.

That had been enough for one day. She’d take a detour after school on Wednesday to investigate properly. Father would be in town late so there would be no danger of him catching her arriving home later than usual, or in the midst of her exploration as he left church. That would be the only potential danger of this great discovery: her father’s church next door. That wasn’t to say she wasn’t allowed to play in the neighbouring fields, and, judging by the planks of wood boarding up the main entrance of the tower, no one but her would be climbing its stone steps any time soon.

Come Wednesday, following this further investigation, she would find a small hole in the hatch, big enough for a child’s finger, which would allow her to pry the wooden panel open. Inside, at the top of a stone staircase, she’ll find the room in which she’ll dive deeper into her reading and writing than she ever thought possible. The neighbouring fields were so overgrown that she could lie in wait out of sight as long as she needed before running across the churchyard (plenty of gravestones to use as cover if she spotted anyone) and in through her secret hatch. All this sneaking was, of course, based on the assumption that her visits would take place during the daytime. If she could continue her silent mastery of the staircase at the house, and acquire the means for some portable light (a lantern, perhaps), there could potentially be entire nights of reading and writing awaiting her.

The room is perfect, or at least it will be once the makeshift writing desk Mr Harper kindly gave her has been dragged up this stupid staircase.

Finally, as she overcomes the last step with both her wooden friends by her side, the room presents itself. The space had been crammed with rotting furniture and all sorts of rubble, but, having picked the most strategically suitable night, she’d simply thrown it all out of the tall stone window onto the grass below, then shifted it into the neighbouring woods. The room is mostly bare now, and she takes considerable pleasure in dragging the crates – writing desk and chair, that is – into her new study, high above the world.

The girl lights the lantern with a pack of matches taken from the kitchen and sets it upon the larger of the two crates, which she positions with great pride in the centre of the room. She also places writing materials from her rucksack on her new desk, then takes a seat on the smaller crate. She gazes at the stone walls glowing in the candlelight.

This’ll do.

She tried writing tonight but the sight of the blank paper was too much. The infinite possibilities of that empty canvas drove her so crazy she ended up snapping her last pencil. Starting these things is always a nightmare. She kicks the broken pencil across the floor.

Today is her thirteenth birthday. Despite this, she could have left for the clock tower much earlier and no one would have noticed. She shares her birthday with Noah, rendering her parents and guests utterly preoccupied. He was given – amongst much else – a seaside bucket and spade, shiny, metal, and red. Just the colour he wanted. They even had it engraved, if you can believe that. He loves digging for worms, the idiot. He’s going to be a scientist, apparently.

Her birthday present was a pocket Bible laid ceremonially outside her bedroom door and, later, a bin bag filled with crumpled wrapping paper. ‘Lenata,’ the child had bubbled, his incapacity for Rs boiling her blood, ‘I found some mole lapping papah you can put in the lubbish, Lenata.’

The speech impediment was real, in so far as it was a permanent fixture of his speaking voice. However, the accentuation of her mispronounced name was, she was sure, deliberately emphasised. He knew it annoyed her. She could see it in the grin through which he sneered the word.

‘Lenata,’ he’d whine at every available opportunity. ‘Lenaaaah-tah.’

In a funny sort of way she owed him everything. Since his arrival the atmosphere in the house had settled. Her mother’s bruises had ceased their constant renewal,