A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries by Kaylie Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

live here.” The head turned to the side and gestured over the shoulder.
    “Where are you from?”
    “From Paris,” Billy said. “But we’re Americans.”
    “Americans! I don’t believe you. How come you speak French then?”
    “I told you we live in Paris.”
    “Want to see my tree house?” the boy said. “My father helped me build it.”
    “There’s a fence,” Billy said, still suspicious. He did not take to people easily.
    “There’s a hole a little ways down,” the boy said, beginning to walk to the left, slowly, along the fence. Billy and I followed on our side. The boy’s dirty fingers skidded along the diamonds as he went.
    “My name’s Stephane,” he offered.
    “I’m Channe. This is my brother Billy.”
    “You have strange names.”
    “That’s ‘cause we’re American,” Billy said with pride.
    “What’s it like there?”
    “Big,” Billy said. “All the cars are big, the streets are big, the buildings are huge, and the people are bigger than French people.”
    “You make me laugh,” the boy said derisively.
    “It’s true,” I said. “The cars are as long as three French cars.”
    “Here’s the hole in the fence,” the boy said. He ran his fingers down the fence and pulled up on the bottom part of it.
    “Maybe the Elves made a hole,” I said.
    “They don’t exist,” the boy said.
    Once we were on his side he seemed big, much bigger than we, in any case. He was at least a head taller than Billy and had spots of dirt on his face and on his arms, up to the elbows. He was wearing a brownish shirt that faded into the background.
    “I know these woods better than anyone except my father,” he said. “My father is the caretaker of the big house over there.”
    “Show us your tree house,” Billy said. The boy set off, turning his back and waving for us to follow.
    But first Billy did something I found extraordinary; he very nonchalantly took a red handkerchief out of his pocket and tied it to the fence above the hole. What a Boy Scout! I thought. All our cousins back in Pennsylvania were Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts, and I bet they wouldn’t have thought of doing that. I’ll have to tell Daddy about how Billy remembers everything he tells us about playing in the woods, I thought. I was so overwhelmed with pride and affection that my heart began to pound in my head, making me dizzy.
    “I think you’re the best,” I said to Billy, squeezing his arm as we followed the bigger boy through the brambles and thickets. Billy shrugged me off, blushing. He did not like compliments, never had, not since I’d known him.
    The tree house was a beauty. It had a thick wooden floor propped up at the fork of the largest branches, three walls, the back one with a large window, and an A-shaped roof. There was a ladder leading up to it which the boy climbed like a monkey. He sat in the house and gestured for us to follow.
    “You go first,” Billy said quietly. “In case you fall I’ll be able to maybe catch you.”
    Normally I would have been angry at him for suggesting such a thing, but under the circumstances I considered him gentlemanly, and went first. I was wearing long cut-off shorts (a rarity, I always wore skirts, even in the woods) and thought that this was a good thing because he could not look up my skirt at my underwear.
    The boy had a flashlight, some dirty pillows, a dirty blanket, a pack of Gauloises, a box of matches, a slingshot, a pile of stones, and a pocketknife in his tree house.
    “I can kill squirrels from here with my slingshot,” he said. “Just like Thierry la Fronde.”
    “Thierry la Fronde kills bad guys, not squirrels,” I said, horrified.
    “Here, watch,” Stephane said. He sat over the edge of the open side of the tree house and aimed his slingshot at an adjoining tree. I could see movements in the leaves, birds and squirrels hopping about out of sight, making chirping sounds. He pulled back on the elastic thongs, pinching a large stone in the leather