A Quiet Belief in Angels by R. J. Ellory Read Free Book Online Page B

written and it’s still here. There’s thousands of copies of that book all over the country, all over the world. Right now there might be someone in England, someone in Paris, France, someone else in Chicago, reading that very same book, and what they read and what they think is going to be very different from what you felt you were reading. A story is like a message that means something different to everyone who receives it.”
    I listened to what Miss Webber said because everything she said made sense.
     
    When spring came my mother got sick. She grew pale and anemic. Dr. Thomas Piper visited several times, and each time he looked concerned and important. Dr. Piper wore a dark suit with a vest and a pocket watch with a golden chain, and he carried a leather bag from which he produced tongue depressors and bottles of iodine.
    “You are how old?” he asked me.
    “Thirteen, sir,” I told him. “Fourteen in October.”
    “Well, that makes you a man as far as I’m concerned. Your mother has weak blood. Weak in nutrients, weak in iron, weak in most everything that should be strong. She must have bed rest and quiet, perhaps for as much as a month, and she must have a diet rich in green vegetables and good meat. If she does not do this you will not have a mother for very much longer.”
    I walked across to the Krugers’ house after Dr. Piper had left.
    “We will take care of her,” Mathilde Kruger said. “I will send Gunther every day with soup and cabbage, and when she is stronger we will feed her sausages and potatoes. Don’t worry, Joseph, you may have lost your father but you will not lose your mother. God is not that cruel.”
    Three weeks later, the day that Reilly Hawkins told me President Roosevelt was sending American soldiers to Greenland, Miss Webber had me stay after class.
    “I have a letter,” she said, and she reached into her desk and produced an envelope. “It is a letter from Atlanta, Georgia. Come sit here and I will read it to you.”
    I walked to the front of the classroom and sat down.
    “Dear Miss Webber,” she started. “It is with great pleasure that we write to inform you of our competition results. We were greatly impressed with the standard of material submitted this year, and though the adjudication of such a vast array of different styles and subject matter is never easy we believe that this year it has been harder than ever.”
    Miss Webber paused and glanced at me.
    “It is with a degree of commiseration that we must tell you that ‘Monkeyshines’ by Joseph Vaughan did not reach the final stage of judging, but nevertheless we wished to communicate to you our collective enjoyment regarding this most excellent piece. ‘Monkeyshines’ raised more than a few tears and a good degree of laughter amongst our readers, and when it was made clear that the piece had been penned by a boy of thirteen there were serious questions regarding the validity of authorial identity. Such a question was immediately refuted as we are, of course, more than aware of your own reputation and credibility as a teacher. Nevertheless, it still came as a surprise that a composition demonstrating such a natural narrative style and so astutely perceptive was the work of someone so young.”
    Again Miss Webber paused. All I understood was that I had won nothing. I felt little if any emotion regarding the matter.
    “And so, in closing, I would like to heartily commend Mr. Joseph Vaughan for his story, ‘Monkeyshines’: a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience, and evidence that we have in our midst, right here in Georgia, a bright and immensely talented young author who, we trust, will continue to go from strength to strength in his literary ventures. With our best wishes, The Atlanta Young Story Writers Adjudication Board.”
    Miss Webber turned to me and smiled. She frowned, then tilted her head to one side. I wanted to tell her she looked like half her brain was missing.
    “You are not pleased,