Read Online The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall - Free Book Online Page B

my father years ago.”
    “You don’t think it’s diabolical?” asked Skye.
    “I prefer the term ‘Machiavellian.’ When you’re older, Batty, I’ll explain Machiavellian to you.”
    “I already know. It’s a kind of nut.”
    “A nut!” said Skye scornfully.
    “Never mind that,” said Rosalind. “Anna, we came up with the plan, but we can’t come up with any actual women. Do you know any awful ones who don’t already have husbands?”
    “Though not totally awful,” said Jane. “Poor Daddy.”
    “I’ll try. Let me think.”
    While Anna ate pretzels and thought, she let Batty play with her long, honey-colored hair, twisting it into fantastic shapes. Batty adored Anna’s hair, just as she adored Anna’s pointy nose and pixie smile. For Batty, Anna was indeed gorgeous, though not, of course, as gorgeous as Rosalind.
    “I got one,” Anna said suddenly. “Valaria, who works with my mother. Her house is full of crystals for meditating and she’s always talking about who people were in their previous lives. She divorced her husband because she decided he was a cannibal five lifetimes ago.”
    “No,” said Skye. “No, no, no, and no.”
    “Skye’s right, Anna,” said Rosalind. “We want Daddy to have a bad date, but we don’t want to put him through agony.”
    Jane agreed about no agony. Still, reincarnation intrigued her. She’d sometimes wondered if she might have been a famous author—Shakespeare or Beatrix Potter, maybe—in a previous life. “Anna, who was she before? Valaria, I mean.”
    “Anne Boleyn, Madame Curie,” said Anna, ticking them off on her fingers. “Mary Magdelene, Mary Queen of Scots, Mary Lincoln—there were a bunch of different Marys—”
    Skye clapped her hands over her ears. “Stop!”
    Anna popped another pretzel into her mouth and went back to thinking.
    “How about my ice-skating coach?” she asked after a few moments. “Her name is Laurie Jones, but she calls herself Lara Jonisovich so that parents will think she’s European and pay more for lessons.”
    “Daddy hates dishonesty,” said Skye, though making up a new last name was certainly better than crystals and reincarnation.
    “Is she pretty?” asked Rosalind.
    Anna shrugged. “If you like that half-starved look. Oh, and she never reads. She believes that reading channels your mental energy away from skating.”
    “Never reads!” Jane couldn’t imagine a life without reading.
    “Does she like dogs?” asked Batty.
    “I don’t know about dogs,” said Anna. “But she wears a coat made out of rabbit fur.”
    Batty went so pale and dizzy with shock that Rosalind and Anna had to dangle her upside down to get the blood flowing again.
    “Okay, so we definitely don’t like this Lara, and neither will Daddy,” said Rosalind when Batty had revived. “How do we do it? I mean, how can we set up a date?”
    “I’ll figure something out.” Anna’s face was alight with the thrill of conspiracy. “I have a lesson tonight after dinner. Can you convince Mr. Pen to pick me up at the rink afterward?”
    “I think so. Call me at the end of your lesson, and I’ll tell him your mom is working late.”
    There was the sound of the front door opening.
    “Everyone act normal!” whispered Rosalind fiercely.
    By the time Mr. Penderwick came into the kitchen, they were all chewing pretzels and trying to remember what they normally acted like, which meant that they all looked a bit odd.
    “Hello, daughters of mine,” he said, lifting up Batty for a hug. “Hello, Anna.”
    “Hello, Mr. Pen. Isn’t it a lovely day?”
    Mr. Penderwick looked out the window at the dreary clouds hanging over Cameron. “What are you up to, Anna?”
    “Nothing, that is,
nihil.
” Anna was in Rosalind’s Latin class.
    “Rosalind!”
    “Yes, Daddy.”
    “Tell Anna that she’s not fooling me.”
    “Yes, Daddy.”
    Anna took a last handful of pretzels, then stood. “I have to go home and do homework before my skating