The Travellers

I peered through the hedge, watching as the small group sat around the campfire and talked lazily about their travels. I felt such envy, envy at wanting to be part of their family, to not worry about the future but take each day as it came.

There was a rustle from behind me and I spun around, through the darkness I could make out a tall figure of a man standing not far away from me. He didn't say anything for a minute and I stood there awkwardly, trying to think of a story as to why I was stood staring at what I'm sure was his family.

"Is there a reason you're spying on my family or is it just for your own amusement?" He said after what felt like an hour of silence. My heart sunk, I recognised him now, it was Sam. He was who the other Travellers thought of as a leader. His mother, Marie, was the first traveller.

"Oh no, umm, I wasn't spying, I actually, uh, I"

"Just leave." He turned to go.

"No wait, please. What I mean to say is that I came here to ask if I could, umm, stay with you. Please."

"Stay with us?" He repeated. "Is this some kind of joke to you? Did your friends dare you to come up here and -"

"No it's not like that, I promise. I have nowhere else to go, I can work for you, do something so I won't be in the way. And it won't be for very long, only until you travel to another town so I can leave this place." Silence again. "Please."

"You're too young, and there's no work for you to do for us anyway. Just go."

"But I have nowhere else to go." I repeated. "And I'm sure there is something I can do, I could cook or clean -"

"Sam, is that you? Where have you been?" Sam's Mum, Marie, came over but she froze when she noticed me standing there, she forced a smile slightly and gave her son a bitter look. "Oh, another friend of yours Sam? Well, introduce us."

I knew she thought I was one of Sam's girlfriends, I heard Mary, the local gossip, saying before that wherever they travelled Sam had a line of girls he would 'see' before moving on to the next town. I took it as an insult that she thought I was one of them.

"I've never met her before, she's been spying on us. I caught her."

"No I wasn't ..." I felt so stupid, I knew they wouldn't believe and outsider so easily. Why did I come here?

"You look cold; you can come and warm up by the fire if you want." His Mum offered.

"Okay, thank you that would be great." I slowly followed her towards the fire, feeling nervous and uncertain about my brilliant idea. I heard Sam's footsteps as he followed closely behind me. I sat on a log closest to the fire, Sam and his Mum sat on the one a few feet away, I knew Sam was keeping a close eye on me. It was common knowledge that the Travellers didn't let outsiders close to them. There were rumours that they had been attacked by a large group of villagers two years ago in St Colin and since then they had distanced themselves from the outside and kept together.

I knew that I could never go back to my old life now that I'd come here, I would be an outcast.

"Why have you come here?" I looked over at Marie; she was a plump woman with a friendly round face and soft blue eyes that sparkled in the firelight.

"I heard that you were moving on soon and I've been thinking of leaving so I thought I would come along with you just until we reached the next town, then I'll see if I can get a job there."

"But why would you want to leave, you have family here, when we see you around the village you always seem happy."

I had occasionally seen Sam around the village; he had never been a shy man and drew attention to himself easily, often getting into fights with some of the villagers when they made rude comments about his family.

There had been one encounter between me and Sam that I didn't care to remember. He had been about sixteen and I was still a young child, it was snowing and Sam came into the small shop in the village. It had been about to close and Sam and I must have been the last customers. The owner looked Sam up and down before yelling at him to get out. Sam had frozen, probably deciding whether he could change the owner's opinion of him, most of the village had this attitude towards the Travellers; the owner strode over to Sam and threw him outside into the snow covered street, slamming the door behind him. I ran out after him, he was sprawled on the ground so I reached down to help him up. Suddenly there was a loud smack and my head snapped back, my cheek stinging. He had hit me.

"I don't need your help, you're all the same." He dragged himself up and staggered away from me, back towards his camp where his family waited for him. I went in the opposite direction; to the empty room I lived alone in. But that's not what I wanted to do, what I wanted to do was turn around and scream at him, to tell him that he didn't have any idea how lucky he was to have a family that would always be there for him, no matter what. I didn't though.

After that day I hadn't seen Sam, but I had seen Marie occasionally, I didn't think that she had noticed me.

"Of course I noticed you, you where the only one that doesn't look down your nose at us."

"Am I that easy to read?" I smiled, wondering how she knew what I was thinking.

"Not really, I'm just very good at reading people." She smiled back. "So you want to travel to Trancreek with us, do you?" I nodded. "We leave tomorrow, get your things and meet us at midday back here."

"Um actually I have everything I need with me already." I pointed to the old bag resting against my leg.

Marie took a long, assessing look at me before nodding briskly and standing.

"You can stay with us tonight then. Em can show you where your bed will be." A small girl with short blond hair stepped forward and gestured at me to follow her. She led me to a tent far enough away from the rest of the camp that it was almost pitch black, there was only one camp fire and a few lanterns scattered about but the light only reached so far.

Em turned and smiled slightly at me, bravely holding out her hand.

"My names Emma and I'm 6. You can call me Em. All my friends call me Em, will you be my friend?" She said in a rush, her smile growing when I nodded.

"Of course I will." I shook her hand.

"I'll come back tomorrow morning to wake you up." Before I could say goodbye she was gone and I was alone once again.