Chasing Orion by Kathryn Lasky Read Free Book Online Page B

small world. I first washed out the aquarium and then measured out the second level where the sky part would go. The aquarium was a rectangular glass box, but I wanted the sky to be a vault that would fit on top. I had fiddled around with trying to draw what I wanted. It didn’t look that great. I had this idea that maybe I could use mirrors in some way and create a kind of optical illusion so that the figure of Orion could actually be reflected onto the sky. I couldn’t help but wonder if Phyllis’s beast had in some way been the inspiration for this. There was a lot to work out. I got bored with making the clay seascape. I had picked up some moss in the grove on our way back from Phyllis’s. I have to say, it looked pretty good stuck in the swirls of green-and-blue clay that made up the sea floor; however, I decided to save most of it to use for the forest floor when Orion became the mighty hunter. I wanted this small world to look really fabulous. I had never tried lighting before, special effects! This should look as good as a movie set. I couldn’t quite figure out what to do next.
    Emmett could help me, but Emmett, I suddenly remembered, wasn’t here. He was at dumb preseason basketball practice. Lucky Emmett. Emmett not only had friends, he had a whole team! He didn’t have to change schools. Life was easy for him. He could do what he loved — basketball. Basketball courts, unlike swimming pools, were not considered breeding grounds for polio infection. So I went downstairs to get a Popsicle and feel sorry for myself. “A Popsicle now, Georgie? You’ll spoil your lunch,” Mom said.
    “This is my lunch,” I answered grumpily.
    “That’s not very healthy,” my mom said as she read the paper. Something just ticked me off about the way she said this. She didn’t even look up from the newspaper. “What, am I going to get
po-li-o
? Huh?” There was a high sass level in my voice, and you better believe it, Mom put down the newspaper, took off her glasses, and blinked at me and then opened her eyes very wide. Maybe this was threat behavior. Wolves open their eyes when they get angry and try to show rank. Mom was definitely pulling rank here.
    “What in the world is wrong with you?”
    “Everything! I hate this house. I hate this neighborhood. I have no friends.”
    “What about that lovely girl you met at the library? I thought you were going back to meet her there.”
    “She can’t meet me. She has to go with her friends someplace.” This of course was a lie; it was her mother and sister she had to do something with. “She canceled,” I said with emphasis.
Canceled
described my feelings. It sounded like some sort of execution.
    “You don’t want to go to the library, even if your new friend can’t be there today?”
    “Mom, I’ve only known her for an hour. I can’t exactly call her my friend yet.”
    “OK, OK,” my mom said wearily. “Have you tried Susie?”
    “I’m embarrassed. I didn’t go to her birthday party. I can’t just go call her up now.”
    “What about Carol?”
    “She’s at Bible school,” I replied sullenly.
    “You mean it hasn’t been closed? I thought all summer camps had been closed.”
    “Maybe if you just sit around reading about God and Jesus all day, you can’t get polio.”
    Mom looked at me narrowly this time. Normally she would have really scolded me hard about talking this way. Instead she just said, “It’s not that easy, young lady! If it were, more people would be in Bible school.”
    “Mom!” I stood up, gripping my Popsicle. Those two words,
young
and
lady,
just set me off. “I have to tell you something.” I spoke in a very serious voice.
    “What’s that?” she asked.
    “I absolutely hate it when grown-ups call girls my age ‘young lady.’ You know why I hate it?” I didn’t give her time to answer. “I hate it because they never mean it. They use it as a way to put you down. To remind you for yet the millionth time that you, or in