Torn Away

James Heneghan

Description

Thirteen-year-old Declan lives only for revenge. His mother, father and sister were all killed on the streets of Belfast, and Declan will stop at nothing to settle the score. When he is torn away from his native soil and sent to live with relatives in Canada, he is disgusted by their efforts to welcome him into their lives, and determined to make them regret their hospitality. Can he devise a plan to return to Ireland and rejoin his cause? Or will the strange beauty of his new life and surroundings weaken his resolve?

Sujets

• Historical
• Young Adult Fiction
• The Troubles
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Orca Book Publishers
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781554695492
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

In memory of my mother and father. JH
torn away
J AMES H ENEGHAN
Copyright 2003 James Heneghan
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data Heneghan, James, 1930-
Torn away / James Heneghan.
Electronic Monograph Issued also in print format. ISBN 9781551438337 (pdf) -- ISBN 9781554695492 (epub)
1. Irish--Canada--Juvenile fiction. 2. Immigrants--Canada--Juvenile fiction. I. Title.
PS8565.E581T67 2003 jC813 .54 C2003-910772-8
PZ7.H3865To 2003
First published in the United States of America by Viking, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc., 1994.
Published by Puffin Books, 1996. (ISBN 0-14-036646-6)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2003106457
Summary : Forcibly deported to Canada because of his terrorist activities in Northern Ireland, thirteen-year-old Declan must choose between his revolutionary past and a new life with his Canadian relatives.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.
Cover design: Christine Toller Cover illustration: eyewire.com
In Canada: Orca Book Publishers PO Box 5626, Station B Victoria, BC Canada V8R 6S4
In the United States: Orca Book Publishers PO Box 468 Custer, WA USA 98240-0468
www.orcabook.com
Prologue
It is fifteen minutes past two on a cold and rainy Tuesday morning in west Belfast-the middle of the night. A couple of kids are trying to siphon petrol from a parked Cortina.
Jeez! Hold it still will yer.
Keep yer voice down!
The two boys look around nervously. It s not the police they worry about, for the Royal Ulster Constabulary are seldom seen in the Catholic areas. They worry instead of being lifted by a British army patrol.
At eleven and twelve years of age, Babyface and Beanpole are the youngest in the gang, which explains why they are the ones assigned the unpleasant task of siphoning petrol. They wear no rain gear, only baseball caps, sweatshirts and jeans. The weather forecast for the North of Ireland calls for rain all week. Dark rainy mornings are best for this kind of work; the streets are deserted.
Beanpole holds the plastic tubing in the Cortina s tank while Babyface sucks the petrol and starts it running into a coffee jar. He spits. Jeez! I hate the taste of it!
When the boys have filled three coffee jars they screw the lids on. Make sure they re tight, says Beanpole.
They load the jars into backpacks, cushioning them with old T-shirts and newspapers.
Babyface looks over his shoulder nervously. It s terrible quiet, he whispers.
Let s go, says Beanpole.
They carefully mount their bikes and pedal through the rain to a disused warehouse up the Falls Road where they hide the jars under a pile of trash. Then they go home to their beds.
The gang meets at the warehouse the next night. It is a little after midnight and it s raining. There should be eight members, but only five are present: Rubber Bullet and Black Fever are missing; they were lifted following the gang s recent attack on a Prod pub on the Crumlin Road where they destroyed with yellow paint-bombs a huge painting of the British flag on the pub s outside wall. Ace is missing also, but he is expected any minute; he is busy stealing a car.
The oldest in the gang is Lone Wolf, the leader, who is sixteen.
They divide the three jars of petrol so that they end up with six coffee jars, each half full. Next, they tear six narrow strips from an old blanket, soak them in petrol and seal them in a plastic bag so they stay moist. They will need them later for fuses. Then they screw all the jar lids on tight. Next, they gather rocks. Each gang member now has a packsack loaded with half a jar of petrol and a large rock.
They are ready. They stand in the open door of the warehouse, peering out at the rain.
Lone Wolf looks at his wristwatch. We re waitin for you, Ace, he mutters. He is holding Ace s packsack as well as his own.
The minutes go by and the five boys begin to get impatient. The rain gurgles in the broken drain. Crusher keeps cracking his knuckles.
Stop with that! Lone Wolf growls. You re givin me a headache.
Crusher slides his hands into his pockets.
Car headlights sweep along the alleyway.
Here he comes, says Beanpole.
About time, says Crusher.
Ace has a talent for stealing cars. The car he drives up to the door is a late model Accord.
Real nice! says Badman.
Shut up and get in, says Lone Wolf.
Hey! Stop shovin .
Move yer fat arse.
They squash themselves in, and Ace heads for the Shankill area, staying away from main roads to avoid army patrols.
They park in a dark alleyway and walk a short way to Crown Street. The narrow street is lined with red brick terrace houses. The people who live here are Prods-Protestant Loyalists. Most of the houses have British flags on their outside walls. A few windows are boarded up.
Lone Wolf and Ace pull black balaclavas over their heads. The others tie their mothers headscarves over their faces.
Badman passes the petrol-soaked fuses around, and the boys secure them to the jars with rubber bands.
Lone Wolf gives orders quietly:
Beanpole and Crusher, take number forty-two.
Badman and Babyface, take the next house, forty-four.
And Ace, you come with me. We ll take forty-six.
When they are in position, Lone Wolf gives the signal with a shrill whistle. At short range, they throw their rocks through the ground floor windows, shattering the glass; then they light the fuses of the petrol bombs and hurl them through the broken windows.
The men, women and children in the three houses are terrified.
The gang doesn t wait to watch the fires or hear the shouts and screams of fear and anger. They flee into the darkness.
Well done, boys! says Lone Wolf a few minutes later as Ace drives them back to the Falls Road. That ll teach em not to mess with the Holy Terrors!
Chapter One
They handcuffed him to the seat so he could cause no trouble on the airplane.
He was small for his thirteen years, and wiry, with straight brown hair worn in a fringe across a wide brow. He needed a haircut. His eyes too were brown, brooding and dark in a pale face that would have been hard were it not for the lips which were full and soft. He wore old blue jeans, white cotton socks, worn-out sneakers, a blue cotton T-shirt and an old gray wool sweater. He wore no watch, but on the middle finger of his left hand he had a gold wedding ring that had been his mother s.
He had the seat to himself, at the back. He pressed his face up against the window, and when he saw the two plainclothes policemen disappear into the terminal, he folded his thin hand together like a Chinese fan and wriggled it out of the handcuff.
When they had dragged him aboard, everyone had stared. Now, with their heads turned to the front, they were trying to pretend he was not there. The flight attendant was standing at the open door, speaking into her telephone. He would have to be quick.
He slid from his seat, took a deep breath and hurled himself down the aisle.
Somebody shouted, Look out!
But he was too fast for them. He was past the flight attendant and out the door before anyone could stop him.
Stop him! cried the flight attendant to the uniformed boarding pass official, a tall thin man, down on the tarmac.
He skipped lightly down the steps. Boarding passes fluttered to the ground as the man reached out to grab him, but the boy was quick. He swerved and ducked under the man s arms, and was away across the tarmac, arms pumping, legs flashing.
The flight attendant with the telephone must have alerted the check-in staff, for three women and two men were scrambling from behind their counters to form a barrier as he burst into the terminal.
He stopped to consider, his chest heaving.
They advanced on him, arms outstretched.
He turned and plunged back out the door, around the edge of the building and across the road toward the parking lot.
The man in the Avis rental blue Vauxhall saw him run in front of the car and jumped hard on the brakes.
The boy struck the hood of the car with the palm of his hand as he went down. He lay there, still, listening.
The driver, a stout middle-aged man, scrambled out of the car in a panic. As he bent over the crumpled body, the boy leaped to his feet and kicked him hard under the jaw. The man reeled backwards and lay gasping on his back. The boy jumped behind the wheel, slammed shut the car door, restarted the en gine, pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator and screeched away from the terminal.
A police car was waiting for him at the highway, blocking the way ahead. The boy jerked at the wheel desperately, pulling the car around fast with a scream of burning rubber, and raced back toward the parking lot with the police car on his tail, siren wailing.
He rocketed through the parking lot, up one aisle, turning tightly down the other, tight turn, up the next aisle, tires screaming. The police car tried to cut him off at an exit, but the Vauxhall crashed into its fender and kept going, weaving wildly. There were two men in the car. They cut him off at the next exit, and this time when the Vauxha