Lunchtime read: Cat & Mouse

The cost of stealing the iron cross is an expulsion from school for Mahkle and a self imposed exile from the barge, the beach and those friends he has made. But the disappearance of someone just helps increase the mystery around them and in the end the narrator ends up running back to become an altar boy just to see his old friend.

Bullet points between pages 81 – 92 (will post a bit more later)

* Mahkle shows off the medal that he stole and is encouraged to give it back and then he fails to appear at school on the Monday and then the pupils are told that he has been expelled

* All summer there is no sign of Mahkle on the barge and nobody seems to see him even after school starts because he goes a completely different route so the narrator starts going back to church in the hope of seeing him there

* Finally they meet and the former monosyllabic Mahkle is talkative and talks about the problems he has had with his Adam’s apple and the experience of the cat being put on his neck and then reveals he has volunteered to join the submarines

More to come…