A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle Read Free Book Online Page A

mean fewmets? Has anybody ever seen a fewmet?”
    Calvin was down on hands and knees, running his fingers through the little pile of feathers and scales. “Okay, okay, this is most peculiar. But what left it? After all, a gang of dragons just doesn’t disappear.”
    “A drive of dragons,” Meg corrected, automatically. “Do you really think it’s dragons?”
    Calvin did not answer. He asked, “Did you tell your mother?”
    “Charles Wallace showed the feather to the twins during dinner, and Mother saw it, too. The twins said it wasn’t a bird’s feather because the rachis isn’t right, and then the conversation got shifted. I think Charles shifted it on purpose.”
    “How is he?” Calvin asked. “How badly did Whippy hurt him?”
    “He’s been hurt worse. Mother put compresses on his eye, and it’s turning black and blue. But that’s about all.” She was not ready, yet, to mention his pallor, or shortness of wind. “You’d think we lived in the roughest section of an inner city or something, instead of way out in the peaceful country. There isn’t a day he doesn’t get shoved around by one of the bigger kids—it’s not only Whippy. Cal, why is it that my parents know all about physics and biology and stuff, and nothing about keeping their son from being mugged?”

    Calvin pulled himself up onto the smaller of the two stones. “If it’s any consolation to you, Meg, I doubt if my parents know the difference between physics and biology. Maybe Charles would be better off in a city school, where there’re lots of different kinds of kids, white, black, yellow, Spanish-speaking, rich, poor. Maybe he wouldn’t stand out as being so different if there were other different people, too. Here—well, everybody’s sort of alike. People’re kind of proud of having your parents live here, and pally with the president and all, but you Murrys certainly aren’t like anybody else.”
    “You’ve managed.”
    “Same way the twins have. Playing by the laws of the jungle. You know that. Anyhow, my parents and grandparents were born right here in the village, and so were my great-grandparents. The O’Keefes may be shiftless, but at least they’re not newcomers.” His voice deepened with an old sadness.
    “Oh, Cal—”
    He shrugged his dark mood aside. “I think maybe we’d better go talk to your mother.”
    “Not yet.” Charles Wallace’s voice came from behind them. “She’s got enough worries. Let’s wait till the dragons come back.”
    Meg jumped. “Charles! Why aren’t you in bed? Does Mother know you’re out?”

    “I was in bed. Mother doesn’t know I’m out. Obviously.”
    Meg was near tears of exhaustion. “Nothing is obvious any more.” Then, in her big-sister tone of voice: “You shouldn’t be out this late.”
    “What happened?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Meg, I came out because something frightened you.” He sighed, a strangely tired and ancient sigh from so small a boy. “I was almost asleep and I felt you screaming.”
    “I don’t want to tell you about it. I don’t want it to have happened. Where’s Fortinbras?”
    “I left him at home and told him not to let on that I wasn’t sound asleep in bed. I didn’t want him tangling with dragons. Meg, what happened? You’ve got to tell me.”
    Meg said, “Okay, Charles, I don’t doubt your dragons any more. No dragons could be more incredible than Mr. Jenkins coming to look for me in the garden, and then turning into a—a great shrieking bird of nothingness.” She spoke quickly, because what she was saying sounded so absurd.
    Charles Wallace did not laugh. He opened his mouth to speak, then swung around. “Who’s here?”
    “Nobody,” Calvin said. “Meg and me. You.” But he jumped down from the rock.

    “There’s somebody else. Near.”
    Meg moved closer to Calvin. Her heart, it seemed, stopped beating.
    “Hush,” Charles Wallace said, though they had not spoken. He listened with lifted head, like