Read Online My Own Two Feet by Beverly Cleary - Free Book Online

fully hatched.
    Then one night, as I lay awake trying to recall more about Norma, rain began to fall, quite hard for summer, and I fell asleep to the sound of heavy drops pounding on the porch roof. Sometime in the night, I was awakened by male voices nearby. I could see the beam of a flashlight and two shadowy figures on bicycles.
    â€œThis must be it,” I heard one of them say. They dismounted their bicycles and approached the cabin.
    â€œWhat do you want?” I asked bravely as I sat up, the blanket pulled to my chin.
    â€œIs this where the Bunns are staying?” The voice was that of a high school boy. The pair stepped onto the porch at the foot of my bed, out of the rain.
    Dad had heard. I saw him, dimly, by the wavering light of his flashlight as he tried to hold it while he buttoned his pants. Rain had plastered his hair to his forehead. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.
    â€œWe have a telegram for Mrs. Bunn,” one of the sodden boys answered.
    A telegram! And in the middle of the night. No one ever sent telegrams or made long-distance calls unless there was a calamity.
    â€œWhere did you kids come from?” Dad asked as he signed for the telegram.
    â€œCanby,” one answered. “The telegraph office thought we could find you out here.”
    â€œSome ride in the rain.” Dad reached into his pocket for change to give to the soggy pair. They thanked him, grateful for anything they were given, and rode off into the darkness by the unsteady beam of their flashlight.
    But who would send a telegram so important it had to be delivered in the woods in the middle of a rainy night? By now Mother, with a sweater over her nightgown, had joined us. We huddled around the flashlight while she tore open the yellow envelope. “Why, it’s from Verna,” she said. “Aunt Elizabeth died.”
    â€œShe was well when I left in June.” I didn’t know what else to say.
    (Today I wonder if her personality change might have been due to a health problem. Perhaps I did not deserve all her nagging. Perhaps I did. I’ll never know.)
    â€œI wonder how Western Union tracked us down,” said Dad.
    â€œPoor Aunt Elizabeth,” said Mother, and we all went back to bed with our own thoughts.
    The next morning the sun was shining, Mother was smiling, chipmunks scampered through the trees, and Dad had built a fire in the camp stove. “Now you can go back and stay with Verna and Fred another year,” said Mother as she laid bacon in the frying pan.
    I was sure I could not. “If they invite me,” I said. Now, having thought of an alternative plan, I was not entirely sure I wanted to stay with relatives again. Even though I loved them all, there had been moments of discomfort, of not knowing where I stood, of feeling I was not doing the right thing. Beneath my happiness there had been some strain, even before the arrival of Aunt Elizabeth.
    â€œBut Verna promised you two years of college.” This was wishful thinking on Mother’s part. I tried to remind her that I had been invited to spend the winter. “No,” insisted Mother, and Mother was a great insister, firm and unrelenting. “She promised two years.”
    In a day or two we packed up the car and headed for home, the mailbox, and my yearbook. A welcome letter from Paul was waiting. After I read it, I studied my yearbook for Norma’s picture. There she was, N. Crews, a tall girl in thelast row of the Women’s Athletic Association picture. N. Crews was also on a victorious hockey team and the freshmen women’s basketball team. I looked for a written farewell message but found none. Obviously N. Crews and I had little in common, but still…
    Mother and I wrote letters of condolence to Verna, who responded by saying her mother’s death was quite unexpected and that Atlee, now sixteen, had accompanied his grandmother’s body by train to their family