Read Online The Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall - Free Book Online Page B

becoming a chef someday, if it should turn out that she was indeed washed up as a writer, which she could be if she never got this book started.
    “And don’t use Hamish for your book,” said Batty. “Hamish is always kissing people.”
    “You mean like you?”
    “Not me. I run faster than him.” Batty pointed at the pan. “Bubbles.”
    With great excitement, Jane slid the spatula under the pancake, lifted it, and flipped it over. It was unevenly browned, but it was a real pancake.
    “We did it!” she said, hugging Batty. “Only twenty-three more to go!”
    While Skye rushed over to Alec’s house, she steeled herself for the grisly sight of Jeffrey felled by a triumphant Hoover, his doggy jaws dripping with gore. She took the back way, racing along the seawall, down the steps, across the beach, up Alec’s steps, then ontohis rear deck. This was where she stopped, forced to reassess the situation. Someone was playing the piano in Alec’s house, and since it couldn’t be Hoover, it had to be Jeffrey, which meant he probably wasn’t felled or even bleeding after all.
    She peered in through the sliding door. Yes, right in front of her, with his back to the door, was Jeffrey, sitting at a baby grand piano, oblivious to the world around him. She’d seen him in this kind of musical swoon before and knew not to startle him. Once when she hadn’t been careful, Jeffrey had banged against the keyboard cover, making it fall onto his hands. No serious harm had been done, but Skye had learned her lesson.
    Quietly she slid through the door and found herself in what should have been Alec’s living room. True, there were a few living-room kinds of things—a couch and some chairs and a table—but mostly the room had been turned into a music studio. Besides the piano, there were saxophones, drums, trumpets, and maybe those were violins tucked away in the corner. There were also shelves upon shelves stuffed with sheet music, and even what Skye thought might be recording equipment. And there was Hoover, peacefully asleep under the piano. Now Skye had two reasons not to make any sudden movements—Jeffrey’s hands and not waking up that insane dog. Nevertheless, she had to get Jeffrey to stop playing. He really shouldn’t be in the house of an almost stranger using apiano without permission. More important, she was growing ever hungrier by the moment.
    “Jeffrey.” Skye said it quietly, and waited several moments before saying it again, a little louder. “Jeffrey, what are you doing?”
    Only then did Jeffrey realize that he wasn’t alone. He stopped playing and swiveled around to face her, his face alight with happiness. “I’m working on Stravinsky’s Piano Sonata. My teacher in Boston suggested it—he said I need to take an occasional break from the nineteenth century, because I was spending all that time with Liszt, you know.”
    “I suppose so,” said Skye, though she didn’t know anything about either Liszt or Stravinsky. “But what I meant was—why are you playing Alec’s piano?”
    He looked embarrassed. “I guess I shouldn’t have, but the piano was right here—and I couldn’t help it. Hoover doesn’t seem to mind, anyway.”
    Skye didn’t consider Hoover to be the best judge of right and wrong. At least he was still asleep.
    “And Alec must be a real musician, of course. This is his life.” Jeffrey said it so simply. “What I wouldn’t give for a room like this. And no one to tell me I had to leave it.”
    Skye knew who Jeffrey meant by “no one”—his mother had never been enthusiastic about his music. “
I’d
never tell you to leave it—that is, if it were yours. But we should leave this one.”
    “I know.” He turned back to the piano and playedone quiet chord, and then another. “Do you think Alec will let me play it again? It’s a wonderful piano.”
    Because already he was slipping back into his swoon, Skye declared loudly that she was about to faint from hunger. Jeffrey