Read Online The Letters by Suzanne Woods Fisher - Free Book Online Page A

called Mr. Irresistible in a sneering voice. He had made Mim breathless with his winks at church. When she discovered that he winked at all the girls, including the ancient ladies who lived in the Sisters’ House, she reversed her feelings. That was the only logical thing to do.
    But then she was seated next to Danny Riehl in school last August, and she knew her heart was in trouble. Danny Riehl was the smartest, nicest boy she had ever met. He knew more facts than anyone she had ever met. She watched Danny Riehl’s long fingers curl around his book, one leg stretched out, one bent under the chair. She liked to hear him read aloud. He was at that age when a boy’s voice was especially squeaky.
    Today, Teacher M.K. had asked Mim and Danny to stay late and help her take old pictures off the wall and put up new ones. When they were done, Mim and Danny were in the coatroom, gathering their overcoats, hat and bonnet, and lunch containers. Mim felt she must say something. “My mother saw a shooting star streak across the sky.”
    Danny looked up in interest. Great interest. To her knowledge, he had never noticed or acknowledged Mim before that moment. “A few weeks ago? When there was a new moon?”
    She nodded.
    “It was a meteor.”
    Dumb, she thought with a sinking feeling in her stomach. Of course it was a meteor. She should know that. It was as obvious as saying that he had a black hat on. Or both his legs ended nicely below his trousers. She searched her mindfor something better. “Astronauts can see the Great Wall of China from outer space.”
    He nodded. “It’s the only man-made object that can be seen from the moon.” Danny put on his jacket, then opened up his lunch cooler. Inside was a small mouse, quiet and friendly looking. “I found it in the schoolhouse. If Teacher M.K. had seen it, she would have whacked it senseless with her broom. I’m going to set it free in a field behind the schoolhouse.” He looked at Mim. “Want to come?”
    “Yes,” Mim said before he could change his mind.
    They walked to a farmer’s field and Danny carefully set the mouse free near the base of a corn shock. It stayed in one place for a moment, whiskers quivering, before scurrying off. When it disappeared, he turned toward Mim. “What would you be, if you could be anything?”
    Mim frowned. Was this a test? She saw an eagle circling over the pond and wondered if it was one of the eagles that had been buzzing around her farm, and if so, if it was the mister or the missus. “I suppose I might like to be an eagle.” She shielded her eyes to watch the eagle soar in the sky. “They live for thirty years and like to eat fish best of all and their nests can weigh up to two tons. And they mate for life, which I think is terribly romantic.” She cringed. Oh no! Why had she added that part about mating for life? Why couldn’t she have just stopped at the nest part? It’s actually true, she thought, that you could feel your own flush crawl up your neck.
    But Danny didn’t seem at all embarrassed. He nodded solemnly. “Do Luke and Sammy know those facts?”
    “I have told them but I don’t know if they listen.”
    “Sammy, probably.”
    “Yes. Sammy might be listening. Not Luke.”

    “Come on,” Danny finally said, as if he had been deciding something. “I’ll show you what I want to be.”
    Danny led Mim on a trail up a hill that framed one side of the lake. There was a telescope in a case, wrapped inside a big plastic trash bag, hidden in the branches of a tree. “This is a reflector telescope that my dad bought for me at a yard sale. We had to fix it up, but it’s better to use a reflector than a refractor because it uses mirrors to reflect the light, instead of lenses.”
    Reflectors? Refractors? Mim had no idea what he was talking about.
    Carefully, he unwrapped the telescope, set it on the ground, aimed the scope at the sky, and slipped in an eyepiece from a little velvet-lined box. “This is the best spot