Discovering Emily by Jacqueline Pearce Read Free Book Online Page A

Emily’s sleeves went in up to the elbows this time. She pulled her hands out of the water, triumphantly holding a large, golden-brown toad.
    â€œUgh!” said Lizzie and Alice together. “You’ll get warts.”
    Emily turned her back on them and held the toad for little Richard to see. His eyes opened wide as he stared at the toad. He smiled in appreciation. Emily put the toad in a tin and placed a large skunk cabbage leaf over top for a lid, then she hid it under a plant to collect later.
    Suddenly, Dede appeared from around the bend behind them.
    â€œIt’s time to go home,” she said.
    â€œIt is not!” Emily cried. They’d hardly been gone long at all.
    Dede gave Emily an angry pinch, then turned to take little Richard’s hand. For the first time, Emily noticed that he looked tired.
    â€œIt’s been four hours,” Dede said as she began to march them back.
    Emily hung behind to pick up the toad. She looked up into the silent trees. Only the stream made any sound. How could a few hours have gone so quickly when Saturday had taken so long to arrive?
    She said good-bye to the forest and stream and followed the others back. At the picnic site, the baskets were already packed, and Uncle was building a new nest for Aunty in the omnibus. Mother was seated in the bus, looking tired. Richard climbed up beside her and laid his head on her lap. He was instantly asleep. His toy watch dangled out of his pocket. The hands had not moved since they’d started on the trip that morning. The toy watch is much truer than Father’s real one, Emily thought.
    She sat down across from Aunty. The bus rolled and bumped along. Emily peeked under the skunk cabbage leaf she’d placed over the toad’s tin.
    â€œEmily dear,” said Aunty in an indulgent voice. “You must throw that leaf out of the window. The smell is upsetting your old aunty.”
    Reluctantly, Emily tossed the leaf out the window.
    â€œWhat do you have in the tin, dear?” asked Aunty.
    Annoyed that Aunty had made her throw out the leaf, Emily thrust the tin up to the old woman’s face.
    Aunty screeched.
    Dede reached across, took the tin and looked inside. Before Emily could stop her, she flung it out the window, toad and all.
    Emily swallowed a cry and twisted around to look. As the omnibus clattered forward, the tin can bounced off into the bushes at the side of the road. She could just make out the golden-brown shape of the toad hopping slowly back toward the stream.

17
The Contest
    Sitting in the hard, wooden desk at school the next week, Emily couldn’t stop her mind from wandering back to the stream. She wondered how the toad was doing. Only art class could keep her attention. In other classes, the time dragged, but in art class it flew just as it had at the stream. She had tried to stop being interested in art, but it was something inside her that had taken hold. She couldn’t shake it off.
    Art was like the British Columbia nightingales. This was a nickname Father had given to the tree frogs that sang each spring in Beacon Hill Park. It was hard to believe that such a tiny creature could make sucha big noise. When she was smaller Emily had been frightened by the chirping rattling sound that came in the open window and filled the whole bedroom at night. When Father had told them it was British Columbia’s nightingales, she had imagined the nightingales to be huge creatures lying in wait in the park swamp. No wonder her parents had forbidden her to wander alone through the park.
    Then Mother had told Emily that a nightingale was an English bird that didn’t live in Victoria at all and that the name was just Father’s idea of a joke. Now Emily loved the sound of the frogs in spring. All winter you heard nothing from them, then suddenly they were there, filling the whole world with their sound. Art was like that inside Emily. Now that it had woken, she couldn’t keep it