Trevanian's Leap is the third Penwinnard story. It is now available as a paperback or as an ebook.
Paperback from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Trevanians-Leap-Penwinnard-Stories-ebook/dp/B00F4MYRYO/
or ebook from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Trevanians-Leap-Penwinnard-Stories-ebook/dp/B00F4MYRYO/
Frank Ryan was coming to the end of his time at
Penwinnard. He felt himself so much more grown up now than the scared kid he’d
been when his mother had been sentenced to a prison term. But now there was
more change coming – a new place to live, a new school, and he’d lose the
friends he’d made at Penwinnard - Bob and Dallas, but especially Greg. He’d
never really had friends before.
He shouldn’t be frightened. He was so much more grown
up now...
Here is the first chapter as a preview.
You will enjoy Frank. He is very human. Not a hero, just a boy growing up.
Copyright
2013 by M. A. McRae.
Chapter 1
Frank Ryan stood at the top
of a cliff and regarded a still pool below. Around it, the waves swirled and
beat against the rocks, but that particular pool showed only slight ripples
from the strong wind that plucked at the surface of the water. His best friend
went cautiously closer to the cliff edge and said, “Don’t be so bloody silly.
You’d be a fool to jump into that from here!”
Frank said, “I’ll be going
to live with my mother just as soon as she has a place fixed up. If I’m going
to do it, I’ll have to do it soon.”
“Well, there’s no way I’d be
doing it!”
“Pete says everyone does it.
Otherwise they’re just chicken.”
“Well, I guess I’ll have to
be chicken,” Greg said, and he turned and walked off.
Greg was small for his age, fourteen,
but Frank had just turned sixteen and was much taller and more solid. He’d been
quite fat when he first arrived at the Boys’ Home, but while he hadn’t lost weight,
he’d grown nearly three inches since then, and no longer appeared fat. He was
also far fitter. In his other life, before his mum had gone to prison, he’d
fancied himself as a ‘Gamer.’ But here, there were only a few computer games,
all as old as the hills, and besides, the boss was apt to chase boys outside if
he thought they’d been there too long. These days, he tried to copy his
room-mate, Bob, who liked to take long runs in the mornings whenever it wasn’t
too cold or too wet.
Frank seldom ran, but his
walks had been getting longer and more brisk, and he no longer thought of the
three miles from the boys’ home to the
village of Ryalston as a tedious trudge. Boys fifteen and over were allowed to
go alone into Ryalston when they chose, though not the younger ones. Not that
it stopped Bob, who was only in fourth year and went there quite often, even
after dark. He couldn’t tell on him, of course. Winnards never tattled, and he
was a winnard – a falcon. They lived at Penwinnard which meant place of the
falcons, and so they were winnards.
It had been a very wet
winter, but now it was May, the sun shone more often than not, and the sea
sparkled blue instead of a leaden grey that had sometimes appeared ominous,
especially when he’d first arrived, scared to death and fully expecting to be
beaten up every day.
He stayed staring at the
pool a while longer, before suddenly shivering and turning for home.
That evening, once he and his
room-mate were in bed, he said, “Bob, you know Trevanian’s Point?”
Bob glanced over at him, “You’re
not thinking of jumping, are you?”
“Why not? I’m big enough and
I’m strong enough.”
Bob was up on an elbow,
staring at him, before shaking his head. “It’s dangerous. Why would you want
to?”
Frank lay on his back, hands
behind his head. Why did he want to?
After five minutes silence,
Bob asked, “You taking anyone with you to see your mum?”
“It’s just me and Mrs.
Dawes. Two nights, and I stay with an aunt, and Mrs. Dawes somewhere else, she
didn’t say.”
“I guess no-one else would
be allowed the time off school anyway.”
“I’ll be going straight into
an ordinary class at the new school. And no-one will ever know I was in Special
Ed.”
“It’s helped, though, hasn’t
it?”
“A lot. And I overheard Mrs.
Bettison talking to another teacher – she said that some teachers just didn’t
know how to teach reading and it was inevitable that some would miss out.”
“Was that what happened?
“Dunno. I sort of gave up.
The rest of them seemed to catch on okay.”
“You told me that Mrs.
Bettison taught it differently.”
“Sounding a word out, stuff
like that. The other one, she just put words all over the room, gave us lots of
books and writing to look at, and we were supposed to work it out for
ourselves.”
“Maybe with some of the
other ones, their mothers helped them or something like that. It’s a bit tough
to have to crack the code all by yourself.”
Frank laughed, “Crack the
code! It is a bit like that. So anyway, she says my reading age is exactly what
it should be, and that I’m perfectly bright, and these last several weeks, she’s
been checking the Year 5 curriculum and trying to make sure I get what all the
others get.”
“Rosie still being a problem?”
Frank made a face. “I know
it’s not her fault that she’s like that, but being backed into a corner so she
can show me her boobs... I don’t want to – not with her.”
Bob sat up, “She that bad?”
“Yeah. She’s going to get
herself in trouble, I reckon.”
“I wonder if we should tell
someone. I reckon there are plenty of bastards who’d take advantage of her.”
“You think? Looking the way
she does?” Rosalie had Downs Syndrome, her looks typical of those with the
defective gene.
“A lot of men are bastards.
We’ll go and see the boss tomorrow. Maybe he can check she’s on birth control
or something.”
Frank said vehemently, “No
way. And anyway, what could the boss do? He has nothing to do with it.”
“We could be blamed if she
does get pregnant. And anyway, she’s a nice girl. She was nice to me when I
first came.”
After school the following
day, Frank was again at Trevanian’s Point, looking down into the centre of
stillness in the midst of swirling waves. He was not alone, Greg was with him as
usual, plus a couple of others of similar age, Leon and Dallas. Leon said
suddenly, “Well, if you do it, I will as well.”
Dallas said, “I always
thought it a silly thing to do. It’s what Bob says as well.” Bob had a high
status among the boys – what he said, mattered.
Frank said, “The water’s
still too cold for swimming. And Pete told me we should check the depth first
in case it’s not as deep as it used to be.”
“It looks deep enough,” Leon
said. “It’s quite still today.”
“I reckon I’ll check it
first. I’m not stupid.”
“Nor me. We’ll both check
it.”
“Tomorrow maybe. It’s
Saturday tomorrow. Better to have a look at low tide.”
The sea was a part of life
at Penwinnard Boys’ Home. The sound of the sea was a background to their
comings and goings, the obvious place to take the dogs for a romp, and in
summer, the place to swim. The manager, Ian MacKender, didn’t try to limit
their access to the beach, only tried to ensure that new boys were warned of
the dangers, and kept his fingers crossed that they’d be sensible. He had not
yet lost a boy to drowning and hoped he never would.
He was in his office as he
always was at this time. Every weekday, half past four in the afternoon. It was
the nominated time when the boys could come and see him if they wanted, and it
was the time when he went through some of the paperwork. He had a file open on
his desk. There was to be a new boy, James Hancock, just turned fourteen. He
could share with Greg. At one time, he would have asked Dallas to go in with
him – Dallas was always nice to the new boys, but Dallas and Leon had struck up
such a friendship that he was reluctant to separate them. So Room No. 5, Greg
Wayne and James Hancock. And that would be twenty-four boys and he had a full
house again.
There was a quiet knock on
the open door, and Bob asked, “Mr. MacKender?”
Ian put the file away in the
drawer before he invited the boy to enter. Bob Kelly. Bob was a bright boy, but
not only did he have a history of abuse, but his life would be at risk if
certain people knew he was alive. He was not allowed on excursions, not even to
Falmouth, which was quite close. His looks were too distinctive, very black
hair, dark blue eyes, and undeniably good-looking. He was in the custom of
wearing a hoodie. He liked to pull the hood close around his face.
Bob asked, “Still no photos
of me on the net?”
“Gerard would have told me
if he’d found any. He says that Lachlan hasn’t touched his facebook account
since he left here.” Gerard worked for Witness Protection.
“They still looking for
him?” Lachlan had attacked Bob some weeks before. It was why Bob had been given
a dog, now waiting obediently in the outer room. It had been a particularly
nasty attack.
Ian said, “They say they’re
looking for him. Is that what you came to ask?”
“Something different. You
know Rosalie Simpkins? In the Special Ed class? I had to try and tactfully tell
her that I couldn’t be her boyfriend. That was months ago, but now she fancies
Frank.”
“Well, Frank will be leaving
soon, so that should solve itself.”
“She’s become very pressing,
embarrassingly so. If she pushes herself at some man and he takes advantage,
she’ll wind up pregnant. I thought you should tell her mum and maybe she could
fix it.”
Ian sat back. “I should tell her mum? Did you think
just how embarrassing that would be for me? I’d be thrown out on my ear.”
Bob grinned, “I thought you
might be quite accustomed to doing embarrassing things. And she’d probably take
you as a professional who’s allowed to pry.”
Ian laughed, “Well, this job
has had its awkward moments on occasion.”
“If she gets pregnant,
they’ll blame it on one of us. Like that car that was stolen and the police
were straightaway around here.”
“That was one of you.”
Bob laughed, “Maybe. But
they couldn’t have known that.”
Ian scratched his head,
wondering what he should do. He didn’t know girls as he did boys, and it was
none of his business. He asked, “Just how pressing is she?”
“Showing off boobs, that
sort of thing. And even if she’s not exactly pretty, it won’t stop some
bastards.”
“No.”
Bob stood up, “Well, I’ll
leave it to you.”
Ian’s ‘Thank you’ had a
distinctly ironic tone, but Bob just grinned and left him.
Ian was quite relieved when
there was no-one else bringing any problems to him. He suspected that if
Rosalie did fall pregnant, then certainly the finger was likely to be pointed
at his boys. He felt there should be more allowances made for them. That car –
that had been Sean Swan. Like many of his boys, he was from a home where crime was
a way of life. But all the same, he hadn’t been in any real trouble for years. He
suspected that this latest stupidity was because he was so annoyed that Bob had
thrashed him in a fight. Not that he’d seen it, but there had been hints
enough.
He spoke to his wife about
it that evening. He was not one to stand aside and watch as events played out
badly, not when it could be avoided.
Helen said, “So she’s
retarded, wanting sex, and probably without the intelligence to look after herself
as she needs to.”
“But it’s none of my
business, not really.”
“At one time, they would
have given girls like Rosalie a hysterectomy as a matter of routine – it solves
the problem of possible pregnancies and stops the problems of menstruation. But
they’re not allowed to do it these days.”
“I suppose I could have a
word with Mrs. Bettison. I have to talk to her about the new boy anyway.”
“The new boy – has he missed
much school?”
“About six months, but I
gather that attendance was erratic before that. With any luck, he can go back
into ordinary classes next school year. He still has his leg in a light cast, but
only for a couple of weeks, I’m told. Dr. Tan will be getting his medical
records.”
James Hancock, the prospective
new boy, had had an operation to re-break and reposition a badly broken leg. There
had been no treatment at the time of the break – his stepfather might have had
to answer a few questions. It was a sad story, but Ian had seen worse. Dallas,
for instance, had been nearly dead from starvation when he’d been rescued from
his parents. Most of the Penwinnard boys had poor backgrounds, though a few
were simply ordinary kids who’d lost their parents. Greg Wayne was like that,
and Sidney Sneddon, who’d just turned twelve. It was time to get in touch with
Ruth again. Ruth Grierson was the OFC, and it was she who referred enquiries
from adoption agencies. There were always people wanting to adopt a baby or
young child, but only a very few who were willing to think about a teenage boy.
And for no reason at all that Ian could see, there never seemed to be anyone at
all thinking about it when the weather was cold.
***
Saturday. It was low tide,
and the usual restless swirl of the waters was subdued. Four boys picked their
way across the rocks below Trevanian’s Point - Frank and Leon, Dallas, who was
thoroughly disapproving, and Greg, who’d given up telling the others they were
being stupid and was wondering if he should do it too.
The tradition of
‘Trevanian’s Leap’ had started about fifteen years before. It was like a
declaration of manhood, but it was not nearly as universal as Frank had been
told by Peter Powell. No-one had done it the previous summer, and only one the
summer before that. And naturally, it was strictly forbidden. The staff wanted the
dangerous tradition forgotten.
They arrived at the edge of
the pool and Frank studied it. Leon said, “It’s deep all right.”
“Holy shit!” Greg said, “Look
at the crab.”
“Christ, it’s got some
pincers!”
The crab sidled itself under
a ledge.
Frank took a breath. He
wasn’t stupid and he didn’t plan on hurting himself. Gingerly, he edged down an
incline, and then stepped down into the pool, stumbling when he misjudged the
depth. It was so clear, and yet distances were deceptive. Cold though, and he
shivered. It was too early in the season for swimming. Yet he continued,
finding the deepest place and taking note. Quite a large area, and when he
stretched as much as he could, he couldn’t feel the bottom.
Leon was beside him, but
shivering violently. And then Dallas, and it was Dallas who took a deep breath
and dived, pulling himself along the bottom, checking it. Dallas had been at
Penwinnard since he was eleven. He was an excellent swimmer and knew the
shoreline. He popped up again, and pointed, “It’s safe all around here, but see
the rock where it sticks out? It’s much more shallow there.”
“I thought you didn’t want
us to do it.”
“I don’t, but if you have to
be so goddamned stupid, just take care not to jump into the wrong place.”
Frank looked around a while
longer, and then returned to the shelving part, and stepped up and out. Leon
asked, “Well?”
“I don’t know. It’s like
Dallas says – stupid.”
“I guess.”
Stupid, but Frank was back
again the following day, this time alone. He explored the deep pool thoroughly,
looked at the rough rocks around, and decided if he did it, he’d go fully
clothed. It would be some protection against rocks – it was not all nice sand
on the bottom of that pool. And shoes, those old runners that were worn out
anyway. They’d still be some protection. He’d jump clothed and wearing shoes.
Would he do it? He didn’t
know.
***
Bob turned to face the sea, staring out at the spray where waves burst
onto black rocks. Something was floating, just a bit of sea-wrack. It was like
all of them, just being tossed where life chose, sometimes floating free,
sometimes being hurt. Wonderful times, when he’d seen tropical beaches and
great mountains and a game park in Africa where lions and elephants roamed
free. And bad times. Two masked men with knives, and spurting blood, and Luc.
He wondered where Luc was now. He’d never been arrested, he knew that, though
nearly all the others had been. It would be silly to tell Sid anything. Better
to keep his past as dark as he knew how. Secrets were not secrets when even a
single other person knew.
