"David Freer - The Forlorn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Freer Dave)

After a long drink of the slightly rust-flavored water, Keilin slipped out, through the crowded
stack-room, and into the little kitchen the librarians used. He knew that he was in trouble, and needed to
think of some way out, but for now he let his familiar rituals carry him. Years back Keilin had worked out
that the mistake that most thieves made was to try and attack the food chain at too high a level. If you're
hungry, don't try to steal meat pies, or gold for meat pies. Those things are well guarded, and thieves are
hunted down. The port grain silos however . . . well, they were poorly defended against rats and pigeons,
and easily accessible to a nimble boy. The porridge he made from the mortar-crushed wheat wasn't
nearly as appetizing as a meat pie, but Keilin, unlike most of his peers, wasn't malnourished. Also, the
grain made good bait for the pigeons he trapped on the roof. Keilin looked down at the porridge and
sighed. If he'd not been tempted into trying for peppers, he wouldn't have been spotted and chased into
that alley.

He cleaned up meticulously. Everything was left in its exact place. He'd been using the kitchen for three
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years now without its legitimate owners being any the wiser. By the time they got in, the little alcohol
stove would be cold, and any smells lost in the odor of yesterday's curries. He sometimes stole a little of
these too . . . but very circumspectly. He went to wash, a ritual he'd taken up when the head librarian had
smelt Keilin's far-from-delicate alley bouquet, and had spent the next hour zealously hunting dead rats
around his hideout. Keilin had spent the time silently between fear and chagrin. There were no rats in the
library, now. But they'd been his main source of food when he'd first taken shelter there.

His mind kept turning back to the previous night. For now, the "Die Hards," the street gang who had
caught him first, thought he was dead. But, by tonight, the word would be out. Anyone who denied that
the city watch had links with the gangs was just naive. So . . . what passed for the lawтАФthe gangs and
the watchтАФwould be out to kill him. He didn't know what story the Guard-Captain had come up with to
explain his men's sudden demise, but he was willing to bet the truth hadn't figured in it. The man wasn't
going to rest easy until Keilin was dead. As for the other gangs . . . they would go along. To keep the
peace, any of them that caught him would hand him over to the Die Hards. But the worst was that the
whining killers had found him again. He sat down with the book he was currently reading and tried to lose
himself in it. Keilin knew that being able to read was all that set him apart from the other scavenging
children of the city . . . but this time he couldn't see how it could help him. Gradually the book swallowed
him.

He slipped out of his reading-induced trance with a start. Surely it wasn't opening time already? Yes.
Those were definitely footsteps on the staircase. Damn. No time for a last visit to the toilet. He'd just
have to use the bloody jar again. Moving swiftly but quietly, he went across to the inverted V of an
old-fashioned bookstand, which stood against the far wall. In the old days he'd had to lift it, but since
then he'd managed to unscrew one of the boards, under the lowest shelf. It had taken him many nights of
effort, but it was worth the extra speed it lent to getting into his rat hole. He slipped through the gap with
some effort, and pulled the waiting board back into place, just as the two elderly and slightly out of
breath librarians reached the top floor. He heard them clatter in the kitchen, as he settled into his nest.

He felt his scraped ribs. He was going to have to do something about that plank. Growing was creating
all sorts of problems. Then, as he listened to the librarians discussing the street news, he realized he
wasn't going to have to worry about the plank after all.