Read Online Messenger by Lois Lowry - Free Book Online Page A

little puppy, Matty. He’ll learn quickly. You don’t need to worry about his mischief.” The blind man reached out his hand and the puppy scampered to it and licked his fingers.
    â€œAnd he’s quite beautiful.” In truth, Matty was trying to convince himself. The puppy was a combination of several colors, big feet, a whirligig of a tail, and lopsided ears.
    â€œI’m sure he is.”
    â€œHe’ll need a name. I haven’t thought of the right one yet.”
    â€œHis true name will come to you.”
    â€œI hope I get my own soon,” Matty said.
    â€œIt will come when the time comes.”
    Matty nodded and turned back to the dog. “First I thought of Survivor, because he was the only one of the puppies that did. But it’s too long. It doesn’t sound like the right one.” Matty picked up the puppy and scratched its belly as it lay on his lap.
    â€œSo then . . .” Matty began to laugh. “Since he was the one that lived? I thought of Liver for a name.”
    â€œLiver?”
The blind man laughed as well.
    â€œI know, I know. It was a stupid idea. Liver with onions.” Matty made a face.
    He set the puppy on the floor again and it dashed off, tail wagging, to growl at the logs piled beside the stove and to chew at their edges where raw wood curled.
    â€œYou could ask Leader,” the blind man suggested. “He’s the one who gives true names to people. Maybe he’d do it for a puppy.”
    â€œThat’s a good idea. I have to go see Leader anyway. It’s time to take messages around for the meeting. I’ll take the puppy with me.”
    Â 
    Clumsy with his stubby legs and oversized feet, the puppy couldn’t manage the stairs at Leader’s homeplace. Matty picked him up and carried him, then set him on the floor in the upper room where Leader was waiting at his desk. The stacks of messages were ready. Matty could have taken them and left on his errand without pausing. But he lingered. He enjoyed Leader’s company. There were things he wanted to tell him. He began to put them in order in his mind.
    â€œDo you want to put a paper down for him?” Leader asked, watching with amusement as the little thing scampered about the room.
    â€œNo, he’s fine. He never has an accident. It was the first thing he learned.”
    Leader leaned back in his chair and stretched. “He’ll be good company for you, Matty, the way Branch was.
    â€œDo you know,” he went on, “in the place where I was a child, there were no dogs? No animals at all.”
    â€œNo chickens? Or goats?”
    â€œNo, nothing.”
    â€œWhat did you eat, then?” Matty asked.
    â€œWe had fish. Lots of fish, from a hatchery. And plenty of vegetables. But no animal meat. And no pets at all. I never knew what it meant to have a pet. Or even to love something and be loved back.”
    His words made Matty think of Jean. He felt his face flush a little. “Did you never love a girl?” he asked.
    He thought Leader would laugh. But instead the young man’s face became reflective.
    â€œI had a sister,” Leader said, after a moment. “I think of her still, and hope she’s happy.”
    He picked up a pencil from the desk, twirled it in his fingers, and gazed through the window. His clear blue eyes seemed to be able to see great distances, even into the past, or perhaps the future.
    Matty hesitated. Then he explained, “I meant a
girl.
Not like a sister. But a—well, a
girl.
”
    Leader put the pencil down and smiled. “I understand what you mean. There was a girl once, long ago. I was younger than you, Matty, but I was at the age when such things begin.”
    â€œWhat happened to her?”
    â€œShe changed. And I did too.”
    â€œSometimes I think I want nothing to change, ever,” Matty said with a sigh. Then he remembered what he had wanted to tell Leader.
    â€œLeader,