The New House
Don't you ever think,' he asked cautiously, 'that it would be better to be a bully than to be bullied? At least that way no one could ever hurt you.' Katarina turned to him in amazement. 'No,' she sai...
He didn't want to play football. He wanted to be told the truth.
There are days when I rather detest living in the year 1867. Everything moves so quickly. Change is happening at such a pace. I preferred the way of life thirty years ago when I was a boy.
I like 'fresh fruit flan', said the donkey. Three excellent words. I don't have one, said Noah immediately before the question could even be asked, and the donkey opened his eyes wide in suprise, and...
He reaches over, takes my face in his hands and pulls me to him. In my idle moments, imagining such a scene, I have always assumed that it would be the other way round, that I would reach for him and...
My twin contradictory places of idleness: the public bar and the chapel. One so social and teeming with life, the other quiet and warning of death.
I said my goodbyes to Madge at the front door and watched her for a few moments as she made her way down the driveway before closing it again. At first I rested my forehead against the woodwork, wonde...
It seemed like a great adventure, at least at the start.
Something must be done. Not just for him but for all the Pierrots out there. The Führer will destroy the whole country if he’s not stopped. The whole of Europe. He says that he is illuminating the min...
His position, like so many of his ilk, was one of uncontested and unearned respect.
He had never felt so ashamed in his life; he had never imagined that he could behave so cruelly. He wondered how a boy who thought he was a good person really could act in such a cowardly way towards...
I would have dearly liked to close the French doors between us for a bit of peace, but Mam wouldn't allow it; she said that solitude would give me ideas and the last thing a boy of my age needed was i...
And been committed to a home for the bewildered
Situations like that always made Bruno feel very uncomfortable because, in his heart, he knew that there was no reason to be impolite to someone, even if they did work for you. There was such a thing...
Oh, I hate him,' she said, and I noticed a flush of colour come into her cheeks and the manner in which the fingers of her left hand dug into her palm, as if she wanted something to take away the pain...
I had told the truth, or a version of it, anyway.
Grunt,’ grunted Kotler.
But they’d never once invited any of the striped pyjama people to dinner.
Actually, they were very strange parents,' I told her. 'Neither of them were what you might call conventional people. And they had an extremely peculiar approach to parenting. Sometimes I felt as if I...