Children in the Morning by Anne Emery Read Free Book Online Page B

away.”
    “No! Really?”
    “Well, he wasn’t really our brother, but he lived with us sometimes. Years ago, and again last year. Then he left.”
    “Where did he go?”
    “Nobody knows.”
    “That’s awful!”
    “He was mean!” Jenny said.
    “Well, yeah, he was sometimes,” Laurence said. “But maybe she didn’t know that. He always acted good around Mum. She might have been sad about him being gone.”
    “When did he go?”
    “A few months ago,” Laurence said.
    “Was it a long time before she died?”
    “Not very long.”
    “How old is he?” I asked.
    “Fifteen.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Corbett.”
    “I never heard that name before.”
    “I suppose. I never thought about it.”
    “We’ll have a family meeting on this, Richard. In the meantime there is no point in arguing.” That was Richard’s mum again.
    Richard was walking away from the field, and he didn’t seem very happy about it. He didn’t look at us or any of the other kids. “Good day, Reverend!”
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    I don’t think Father Burke likes being called Reverend. That’s not his proper title. But Mrs. Robertson isn’t a Catholic and she doesn’t know any better. Father stuck up for Richard, though. “You’ll be pleased to hear that Richard is singing so well he’s going to be the section leader for the trebles.”
    “It’s about time. Richard? Keep moving. And you’d better not get any mud in that new car. Your father won’t be pleased.”
    They left, and Father Burke made a cross behind her back. I don’t mean a sign of the cross that you do when you pray; I mean he crossed his hands in front of himself the way they do in a horror movie when they want to “ward off evil.” It was funny. He probably forgot the rest of us kids could see it.
    But I think I got him in trouble, even though I didn’t mean to. I told Daddy when he picked me up after school. He laughed, but then he said: “No consent form, eh? I’ll have to have a word with the good Father about that.” Lawyers don’t always see the fun in things.
    †
    Daddy has to work later than school kids do, so he took me to his office. I like going there except he always tells me to do homework while I wait for him. He had to go to some kind of meeting with the other lawyers so I had his office all to myself. I was good and started doing my lessons, but then I got tired of school work. I could finish it all in twenty minutes at home, so why bother with it now? More fun to go through the stuff in Daddy’s office, like the stamp that says
    “Montague M. Collins, A Barrister of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.” I made some designs on paper with that. I tried to erase Montague and put Normie, but I made a mess. Then I snuck my Nancy Drew book out of my schoolbag and put it on my lap behind the desk, so nobody could see me reading instead of studying. But it was almost like studying anyway, because this book has all kinds of big words in it, like “creditably” and “supercilious,” and I can look them up and sneak them into my school work and get better marks.
    The book is The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes , where Nancy goes to Scotland and meets all kinds of people like my own ancestors, and solves a mystery. And it made me want to solve a mystery myself. I 29

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    could call it The Mystery of the Missing Brother . Not my brother, but Laurence and Jenny’s. Where was Corbett?
    Most people go to the police when a person is missing. But the Delaneys would have done that already. So I couldn’t start there. Any time I read a book or see a movie about somebody missing, the first thing they ask is “Where was he last seen?” I would ask Jenny and Laurence who saw Corbett before he went away. Other questions would be: Was he happy or sad, or mad at somebody? And: Did he have stuff with him, as if he was going to run away for a long