Читать книгу The Marble Crusher - Michael Morpurgo - Страница 10

CHAPTER FOUR

CONKERS WERE OVER AND IT WAS THE marble season in mid-November. Now Mr Manners hated marbles.

‘Treacherous things, marbles,’ he said in Assembly one morning. ‘Slip on one and you can break a leg, just like that. In the playground, yes, play with them all you wish, but inside my school there will be no marbles. If I see, or so much as smell a marble inside my school, it will be confiscated. And you know what that means.’

‘What does that mean, Sid?’ Albert asked after Assembly.

‘What does what mean?’

‘Con . . . confiscated. What does it mean?’

Sid smiled inside himself. ‘Crushed,’ he said. ‘Crushed, that’s what it means.’

‘Crushed?’

‘Same every year,’ said Sid, and he turned to his friends. ‘Isn’t that right, lads?’ And they all nodded and turned away to hide their smiles.

Sid went on in a hushed voice. ‘It’s like this, Bert. If your marbles are confiscated by old Manners, that means he takes them away and puts them through his machine – a marble crusher.’

‘A marble crusher?’

‘A marble crusher. He keeps it in his room under his desk. I’ve seen it. We’ve all seen it. And that’s where they all go.’