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Authors: Patricia Reilly Giff
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shelf. I don’t even see which ones they are. I fly down the hall and fumble with the door, but I can’t get it open. I go back to the window and scramble out backward, scraping my wrist as I reach for the stones on the milk crate.
There they are. I’m free.
I dust myself off, and then I see something moving between the trees out back. Is it a deer? But the movement stops.
Is someone watching me? Is it the boy from the first night? The mountain lion boy?
Too bad there isn’t snow. I’d—
But maybe it isn’t the boy. Maybe it’s the teacher.
Quickly I edge around the front of the school, and then I head for home. I have a terrible feeling in my chest. Whatever made me sneak in there? But then I know. I was hoping I’d see something, find something, to remind me of what school is all about.
The books under my coat feel heavy. One edge digs into my skin.
What have I done?
Dear Miss Mitzi
,
Yesterday we kept watching the eggs. They were twenty-one days old. “Hurry,” I kept saying
.
Cassie said, “A watched pot never boils.”
But Joey said, “I’m glad these are eggs and not pots.”
At last the eggs began to crack open. Pop had warned us not to help them. “They have to fight their way out by themselves,” he said. “Otherwise they won’t be healthy.”
We held our hands behind our backs so we wouldn’t reach out and pull off a piece of shell here and there. They had to struggle so hard to get out
.
But then out they came
.
At first the new chicks were bedraggled, but they dried into yellow fluff. And someday they’ll lay eggs of their own
.
I wish you could see them
.
Do you remember last year? We went to a duck
farm. All of us. You made a picnic lunch. We sang “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.”
Love
,
Rachel
P.S. Did you ever do anything and didn’t think about it until afterward? Then deep down you knew it was wrong?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I’m awake early every day, snuggled in bed, reading.
I’ll hate to finish
Anne of Green Gables
. I wish I were just like her. I’d love that good, quiet Matthew, too. But sometimes I stop reading, keep my place in the book with my finger, and wonder: what would Anne say to a girl who’d sneaked into school and borrowed books without asking?
This morning, for the first time, I hear the frogs croaking down at the stream. I tiptoe into the kitchen and open the door to hear them better.
Yes, there they are, just as Pop said. If only he were here to listen to them with me. If only!
I sit at the kitchen table with the money he left us, listening to the chicks peeping in their box. I arrange the dollar bills with their gold seals in front of me, placing them separately, one by one.
A few days ago, with the money from the mayonnaise jar, the dollars covered almost the whole table. Now there’s a hole in the middle. Where did it all go? Before he left, Pop brought home as much food as he could, but we took that long winding road to town and bought seed for the chicks from the grain store.
What else?
Milk from a farmer on the other side of town.
But what is here has to last us until we hear from Pop. No wonder I couldn’t have a dog, or even a goldfish.
I remember Pop saying, “I’ll send money as soon as I can.” He ran his hand through his hair until it poked up in all directions, a sure sign of how worried he was. “I don’t know how long it will take before I’m paid, or before I’ll be able to send mail. I don’t even know how much money it will be.”
Cassie clatters into the kitchen, yawning, her hair a whoosh around her head. “It’s not a good idea to have our money floating around all over the place.” She pushes her bangs off her forehead.
I think of Pop reminding us at the last moment, “You’ll have to learn to live together, to help each other.”
Gaa
, I wanted to say, but then I had a quick thought of Cassie climbing the tree in Brooklyn, holding out the pillowcase for my poor Clarence.
“Want some breakfast, Cass?”
There they are. I’m free.
I dust myself off, and then I see something moving between the trees out back. Is it a deer? But the movement stops.
Is someone watching me? Is it the boy from the first night? The mountain lion boy?
Too bad there isn’t snow. I’d—
But maybe it isn’t the boy. Maybe it’s the teacher.
Quickly I edge around the front of the school, and then I head for home. I have a terrible feeling in my chest. Whatever made me sneak in there? But then I know. I was hoping I’d see something, find something, to remind me of what school is all about.
The books under my coat feel heavy. One edge digs into my skin.
What have I done?
Dear Miss Mitzi
,
Yesterday we kept watching the eggs. They were twenty-one days old. “Hurry,” I kept saying
.
Cassie said, “A watched pot never boils.”
But Joey said, “I’m glad these are eggs and not pots.”
At last the eggs began to crack open. Pop had warned us not to help them. “They have to fight their way out by themselves,” he said. “Otherwise they won’t be healthy.”
We held our hands behind our backs so we wouldn’t reach out and pull off a piece of shell here and there. They had to struggle so hard to get out
.
But then out they came
.
At first the new chicks were bedraggled, but they dried into yellow fluff. And someday they’ll lay eggs of their own
.
I wish you could see them
.
Do you remember last year? We went to a duck
farm. All of us. You made a picnic lunch. We sang “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.”
Love
,
Rachel
P.S. Did you ever do anything and didn’t think about it until afterward? Then deep down you knew it was wrong?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I’m awake early every day, snuggled in bed, reading.
I’ll hate to finish
Anne of Green Gables
. I wish I were just like her. I’d love that good, quiet Matthew, too. But sometimes I stop reading, keep my place in the book with my finger, and wonder: what would Anne say to a girl who’d sneaked into school and borrowed books without asking?
This morning, for the first time, I hear the frogs croaking down at the stream. I tiptoe into the kitchen and open the door to hear them better.
Yes, there they are, just as Pop said. If only he were here to listen to them with me. If only!
I sit at the kitchen table with the money he left us, listening to the chicks peeping in their box. I arrange the dollar bills with their gold seals in front of me, placing them separately, one by one.
A few days ago, with the money from the mayonnaise jar, the dollars covered almost the whole table. Now there’s a hole in the middle. Where did it all go? Before he left, Pop brought home as much food as he could, but we took that long winding road to town and bought seed for the chicks from the grain store.
What else?
Milk from a farmer on the other side of town.
But what is here has to last us until we hear from Pop. No wonder I couldn’t have a dog, or even a goldfish.
I remember Pop saying, “I’ll send money as soon as I can.” He ran his hand through his hair until it poked up in all directions, a sure sign of how worried he was. “I don’t know how long it will take before I’m paid, or before I’ll be able to send mail. I don’t even know how much money it will be.”
Cassie clatters into the kitchen, yawning, her hair a whoosh around her head. “It’s not a good idea to have our money floating around all over the place.” She pushes her bangs off her forehead.
I think of Pop reminding us at the last moment, “You’ll have to learn to live together, to help each other.”
Gaa
, I wanted to say, but then I had a quick thought of Cassie climbing the tree in Brooklyn, holding out the pillowcase for my poor Clarence.
“Want some breakfast, Cass?”
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