Read Online A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck - Free Book Online

a lot, but when they weren’t, I went hungry. I’d already tried grabbing my lunch back from Newt, and I’d got a fat lip out of it. And no lunch.
    On this particular noon I was already going for the apple in my desk when Jess Wood climbed off the farmers’ picnic table and ambled over.
    “Hand it back, Newt,” he said in Newt Fluke’s face.
    “Why would I do a thing like that?” Newt’s voice had changed, probably many semesters ago.
    “Because I might have a word with your leader, Roscoe Burdick.”
    At mere mention of Roscoe Burdick, Elmo Leaper, Jr., pulled back and jammed his mitts in his bib overalls. Newt was left holding the lunch. “What’s Roscoe Burdick got to do with anything?” said Newt, shifty-eyed.
    “This kid is Phyllis Barnhart’s kid brother, you wing nut,” Jess said, like it explained everything.
    Newt blinked, and my lunch seemed to grow heavy in his hand. “Who says it’s your business, rube?” he said to Jess, though his voice cracked.
    “Jess says,” I piped. My hands were on my hips because now I had backup. I don’t know what came over me. I could have got myself smeared all over the room.
    “Easy, partner,” Jess said to me out of the corner of his mouth. “
These
say it’s my business,” he said to Newt. Jess made his farmer hands into fists.
    “Eat up,” Newt said to me, and dropped my lunch on my desk. Egg salad on whole wheat.
    “Thanks,” I mumbled to Jess.
    “Anytime,” he said loud enough for Newt to hear.
    I wasn’t sure what had happened. Phyllis and . . . Roscoe Burdick? I sort of knew she wasn’t going to committee meetings when she went out every other night. But did I know
this?
My head buzzed.
    And how in the dickens did this big old country boy Jess even know about Roscoe Burdick and Phyllis anyway?
    Because everybody around here knew everything. Everybody but me. Jess ambled on back to his group. They stuck together and cut out right after school to do chores.
    *  *  *
    Phyllis wasn’t complaining these days as much as you’d think. I never saw her at school, of course, and she never came looking for me. But everybody on the high school side was getting worked up about homecoming.
    Phyllis seemed to be out at a committee meeting most nights. She naturally wouldn’t be riding on the Iota Nu Beta float because she’d made an enemy out of Waynetta Blalock. But this didn’t appear to faze her. Mother thought Phyllis was beginning to settle in.
    But then on Wednesday she dug in her heels and wouldn’tgo to school. Ruth Ann came down to breakfast, bright-eyed and bushytailed, to say Phyllis was in bed for the day.
    “Oh dear,” Mother said. “Do you think she’s running a temperature?”
    “Nope.” Ruth Ann tweaked the ribbons on her braids.
    “Is she looking pale and washed out?”
    “She always looks pale and washed out without her lipstick on.” Ruth Ann made big eyes. She actually only had two expressions: worried and wide-eyed.
    Mother was at the drainboard, pouring the cream off the top of the milk. She turned. “Ruth Ann, honey, Phyllis doesn’t wear lipstick. She’s only f—”
    “Not at
home
,” Ruth Ann said. “She waits till she gets to school.”
    This was true. But I wouldn’t have told it because I’m not a snitch. Also, if I’d ratted on her, she’d have nuked me into next November.
    At the drainboard Mother took some deep, calming breaths. “Does Phyllis say why she isn’t going to school today?”
    Ruth Ann beamed. She was a first grader with the answer. “Elvis. They’re shipping him out to Germany today. The army is. Phyllis says she can’t be expected to concentrate on anything else.” Ruth Ann scanned Mother to see how she took this. “Phyllis says she’s in mourning for her life.”
    Mother made a tight little ball of the dish rag and gazed away out the window.
    Phyllis had been writing Elvis Presley right along since he’d been drafted into the army last winter. I didn’t see any