Birds of Summer by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Read Free Book Online Page B

minute.” Pardell said. “Take it easy. You’re intimidating me.” She went on frowning while he pretended to take his pulse. “See there,” he said. “One hundred, at least.” He shook his head. “Wow! Clippety clop.” As soon as she smiled, he jumped up and got a chair, and the next thing she knew she was sitting down. “Well,” he said, “let me see the Mark Twain, then.”
    He read it through quickly, chuckling now and then and rubbing his hand over the bald spot on top of his head. “Good,” he said. “Good. Nice observation.” And then, when he had finished, “I like your point about sarcasm rather than irony. A nice distinction. I’ve noticed that about your writing before, Summer. You use words with a great deal of precision.”
    But she wasn’t about to be deterred from her objective. “Thanks,” she said. “Could I have my letter back now, Mr. Pardell?”
    He shuffled through the stack of papers, pulled one out and folded it over, but then he just sat there holding it, even after she held out her hand.
    “And sometimes,” he said, “you write like a poet—with power and clarity and—” He paused for a moment. “Who’s Grant?”
    It was a trick Pardell had. She’d seen him use it before. When he talked to just one person, he could make you feel as if what you were saying was the most important thing in the whole world. And even though it was just one of Pardell’s tricks, it had worked with her before and it did this time, too. Only a moment before she would have sworn that there wasn’t an ice-cube-in-hell’s chance that she was going to say anything at all about Grant or the letter; but then Pardell did that perfect listener thing with his big messed-up face, and all of a sudden she heard herself saying, “My father. Grant is my father.”
    His eyes didn’t even flicker, and after a moment he just nodded very slightly and said, “Of course. Of course.”
    It all came out then—the words welling up from some strange place over which she had no control. “I write to him a lot—for years and years—ever since I learned how to write. Only I don’t mail them because I don’t know where he is. I don’t even know who he is, really. I never saw him. All I know is that Oriole says he was different. He was just hanging out in Carmel like everyone else was then, but with him it was just for that one summer because then he was going back east to go to medical school. Then he met Oriole, and they started traveling together. Oriole didn’t know she was pregnant until after he went away. She never wrote to him about it because she didn’t want him to come back and mess up his life. And then she lost the address. So I just write to him and keep the letters in a box. There’s a lot of them now—hundreds, maybe.”
    She’d been looking down at the desk as she talked, rubbing at a spot where ink had soaked into the wood—rubbing hard as if she could scrub it away. Her voice was a little shaky, but her eyes were all right until she looked up and saw the expression on Pardell’s face; that was when she began to cry. She fought it for a moment, frowning and clenching her teeth, but her throat swelled shut and tears burned in her eyes and finally she gave up and put her head down on the desk.
    While she was crying, Pardell didn’t do or say anything; but when she began to stop, he got up and went to the back of the room and wet a paper towel in the sink and brought it to her. She wiped her face and gathered up her things without looking at him; but when she started for the door, he went with her. He stopped with one hand on the doorknob, holding it shut. When she looked up at him, he just nodded, narrow-eyed, as if he were sizing her up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m a lot sorrier for this Grant character than I am for you. He doesn’t even know what he’s been missing.” Then he opened the door and let her out.
    Most of the way home she stumbled along in a blinding storm