The book grab meme

It's a really horrible rainy morning here in Ireland, the kind where you get up and immediately want to go back to bed to keep warm.

I'm supposed to be doing the gathering bit of the hunter-gatherer deal (we women always get the wrong end of the deal!), by going to the supermarket and getting in the weeks groceries, but that involves popping my toe outside the front door and getting very, very wet. There is a twelve foot long puddle on the road outside the drive and every time a car passes by on the road you get a mighty soaking. Forays outside the front door must be very carefully timed indeed.

Instead I'm doing skint's meme.
Grabbing the nearest book,
going to page 123
sentence 5
and posting the next two sentences:

"He hoped the boys would stop, but they still waded slowly on. It suddenly dawned on Tom that it was become very lonely and still."

Now, you're supposed to guess the subject of the book.