His Name Was Walter chapter sampler

feared, and his face was too delicate to be thought handsome in those days, and in that place. He had a few friends who were as quiet as he was himself, but the threads that held the group together were frail, spun by loneliness rather than by real affection. They broke easily and without pain, as Walter found with only mild surprise when his fourteenth birthday came and it was time for him to leave the hive and begin working for a living. There was a long silence when Colin reached the little bird picture that finished the page, and stopped reading. He looked up, carefully not meeting anyone’s eyes. He became aware that lightning was flickering outside the kitchen window, that the thunder was much louder. The window pane was streaming with water. Rain was pelting down. He hadn’t even noticed it begin. He supposed he’d read very badly, though strangely enough he didn’t feel as if he had. The time seemed to have gone very quickly, the words had slipped easily from his eyes to his tongue, and after the first couple of sentences he hadn’t stumbled at all. ‘That’s the end of the section,’ he said awkwardly. Grace, sitting opposite him, gave herself a little shake as if she were tossing cobwebs out of her eyes. ‘It’s awful that he had to start working full-time at fourteen !’ she said.

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