Read Online Valley of Death by Gloria Skurzynski - Free Book Online

table. Neither of them knew how to start a conversation in this very weird situation where they found themselves. Then, tentatively, Leesa began, “Before, when I asked you about Ashley, you didn’t tell me much. There must be more. What’s she like?”
    Jack searched his mind, wondering what more he could say about Ashley—he’d never before tried to describe her to anyone. Images of his sister came into his mind: Ashley when she was five years old, wanting to tag along with Jack whenever he was playing with his own friends. Back then he’d thought of her as his pesty little sister. Many times he’d hidden from her, or sent her off to bring something from his room just to get rid of her, and when she came back, he’d be gone.
    Ashley at eight, wobbling on her first pair of in-line skates, falling down but getting right back up, even though her shins were bleeding, wearing that stubborn look on her face that showed she was determined to master those skates. And she did.
    Ashley the actress, learning fables and legends by heart, and then performing them for her family around a campfire, under skies where the Milky Way looked like a thick, dazzling carpet spread out above their heads. She could name all the constellations.
    â€œSometimes,” Jack said slowly, “when Ashley doesn’t know I’m watching, I’ll see her take out one of her old Barbie dolls and just sit there holding it. It’s like she wants to play with it, but she thinks she’s too old now for Barbie dolls. She probably figures I’d make fun of her. So then she looks kind of sad, and after a while, she puts it away.”
    If they could only get Ashley back, Jack promised himself, he would save up all his allowance and buy her a dozen Barbie dolls! And he’d never tease her again for the rest of their lives. He bit his lip, feeling so awful inside that Leesa must have seen it in his face. On the sound track, a man was singing a mournful ballad about someone named Lucille, who’d picked the wrong time to leave him, with four hungry children and the crops in the field. “Those country-western songs always sound so sad,” he murmured, making a lame excuse for his own gloom.
    Leesa said, “Country-western was the only kind of music I ever listened to—before Aaron.”
    â€œBefore Aaron?”
    â€œUh-huh.” She seemed to fold into her memories, telling him, “Aaron has this CD player. He used to bring it to school, and when we started being friends, he’d play it for me—all this cool music I’d never heard before. My dad says rock music or reggae or salsa or hip-hop is all nonwhite music that comes out of a multicultural sewer. But when Aaron played it for me, I liked it. Not all of it, but a lot of it.”
    â€œMe, too,” Jack told her.
    â€œThen Aaron started teaching me other music, like songs by George Gershwin or Leonard Bernstein that I’d never been allowed to hear because they were written by Jews. And classical music by Stravinsky and Prokofiev and Shostakovich that my dad banned because he said those men were dirty communists.”
    Jack didn’t know who some of those composers were, but he nodded as if he did.
    â€œAaron even taught me to dance. I didn’t know how, because the kids in The Unit aren’t allowed to go to school dances. Sometimes The Unit puts on dances for us, but all they play are country-western songs, because that’s supposed to be the only uncorrupted white American music.”
    â€œCountry-western isn’t my favorite, but it’s OK,” Jack said. “There’s a lot of it on the radio in Jackson Hole.” That reminded him of the two-way radio the sergeant had given him, which was beside him on the seat. He hadn’t been paying attention to anything that might have come over it because the restaurant was so noisy it was hard to hear. Picking up the handset, he turned