Gossamer by Lois Lowry Read Free Book Online Page B

woman took out her key to the back door. "Here we are, Toby. In you go." Opening the door, she unhooked his leash and the dog dashed inside to check his bowl.
    The little boy followed, his untied sneaker laces flapping on the hall floor. "I might kidnap him," he announced. "You'd have to pay a thousand dollars to get him back, or else I'd kill him and mail you his ears."
    "You hear that, Toby? You're in danger!" the woman said, looking down at the dog, who was lying on the kitchen floor beside his bowl. He looked up with his moist brown eyes, then yawned. His tail thumped once on the wooden floor.

    "Why don't you give him a biscuit, John? He behaved so nicely on our walk. I like to give him a little reward from time to time." She pointed to the ceramic container with a molded bulldog on its lid. "They're in that jar."
    The little boy took out a bone-shaped biscuit, felt its shape with his fingers, considered briefly, and then gave it to the dog, who accepted it with an eager gulp.
    "Don't get used to this," John said to Toby, "because I'm out of here tomorrow."

18
    "I have an idea," Littlest suggested to Thin Elderly. They were huddled together in the hallway again. It was the third night that the Sinisteed had roared through the wall and with his hissing breath inflicted a cruel nightmare on the little boy. For three nights they had watched helplessly during the infliction and then with concern as the woman had come in the night to comfort the boy when he cried out.

    "And what would that be?" he asked her.
    "I think I must touch the dog," she whispered solemnly.
    Thin Elderly looked startled. "Surely you know that we do not touch living creatures," he said to her.
    "Only for fear of waking them," she pointed out. "But the dog sleeps so very soundly. He even snores. And remember how light my touch is? Even when Fastidious was mad at me, she still said I had a wonderful touch." She reached out and fluttered her fingers very lightly against him. "And you told me once that my touch was like gossamer.

    "I don't know what that means, exactly," she added with a giggle.
    "Gossamer is something very fragile and delicate," Thin Elderly explained. "Sometimes it means a cobweb."
    "Oh. How sweet. I do love cobwebs. There was one in a corner of the woman's parlor once, behind the piano, and I danced in it. There was a moon that night, and it just seemed the thing to do, dancing in a moonbeam and a cobweb. Fastidious scolded me, though."
    Thin Elderly smiled.
    "My dancing touch was so delicate that I didn't even break the strands of the cobweb. I am quite, quite certain I could touch the dog."
    Thin Elderly nodded. "Your touch is exquisitely dainty, Littlest One. I don't believe I've ever known a daintier one. And perhaps you would be able to touch the dog without waking him. But what good would it do?"
    Littlest explained carefully, in a whisper. "The boy is so weak! And the nightmares come again and again."
    Thin Elderly nodded sadly. "That's true," he agreed. "Each time they destroy more and more of the memories and fragments he has: the ones we've given him and the ones he brought with him."

    "And he has so little for me to touch and give back to him in dreams, Thin Elderly. He has a chrysalis now, that he found out in the garden, and the woman let him keep it in a jar in his room. He's very gentle with it because she explained how a butterfly was being made inside. So it's a nice thing for me to touch—I can give him that fragment of gentleness and taking-care-of. But it's a very small thing. And there aren't many others.
    "There's the pink seashell that he keeps on the table. And it's the most valuable thing, I think, because it has so many memories—I can feel them there—and it's part of his own story. Remember he wanted shells when she told him that story that began 'Once upon a time there was a little boy'?"
    He nodded.
    "But it's also very small," she sighed.
    Thin Elderly smiled at her as she spoke so earnestly. She was