Lily and the Lost Boy by Paula Fox Read Free Book Online Page B

were?” Paul asked as he walked into the kitchen.
    â€œI did. When I got back here a while ago, there was an old blind man playing a pipe. Didn’t you hear him? He told the whole street a story about his wife locking him out of his house.”
    â€œI only heard you stomping around in the kitchen,” he said.
    She yawned. “Paul, would you get the bread and eggs this morning? I can’t stay up another minute.”
    â€œWhat are you going to tell Mom?” he asked with an intent look at her.
    â€œOh, don’t worry, I won’t tell about your silly trick out there on the beach. I don’t know what I’ll tell her. Would you say I didn’t sleep much last night and please don’t wake me?”
    Paul nodded. “Poor Jack,” he murmured. “Going all the way up the mountain—”
    â€œHe’s not poor Jack,” she broke in angrily.
    â€œOkay, okay …” he protested mildly, looking surprised.
    She staggered into her room and sank down on her bed.
    When she woke up, the sun was shining in her face through the window. A man was singing from far down on the last terrace.
    It must be one of the village men who worked for the archaeologists, she guessed. She knew they’d found a great stone archaic bird just a foot beneath the soil at that end of the garden. They must have started a dig there today to see what else they could find.
    She changed her clothes and went down the hall. Her father was sitting at his table, smoking his pipe and staring at a closed book he held in one hand. There were chopping sounds coming from the kitchen. She felt as though a week had passed since she’d walked home from the beach.
    â€œWell!” her mother exclaimed as Lily walked into the kitchen. “The sleeping beauty! You look flushed. You haven’t got a fever, have you?”
    She put her hand on Lily’s forehead.
    â€œCool as a cucumber,” she said and turned back to the table where she had been cutting up cucumbers and tomatoes.
    â€œWhat are you making, Mom?”
    â€œA cold soup,” Mrs. Corey said. “Something I can make with the materials at hand. It’s called gazpacho.”
    â€œWhat else is in it?”
    â€œOh, pork chops, bacon—the usual,” said Mrs. Corey, grinning.
    â€œOh, Mom!” Lily said, smiling. She took an egg from a bowl, intending to hard-boil it.
    â€œLily?” her mother asked in a serious voice.
    Lily kept her back to Mrs. Corey.
    â€œI went in to look at you last night—”
    â€œâ€”to make sure I was covered,” Lily interrupted, trying to delay what she knew was coming.
    â€œYes. And you weren’t there. Where were you?”
    â€œI couldn’t sleep. I went out for a walk. A kind of long walk.”
    Her mother didn’t speak for a few minutes. Lily filled the little blue Bulgarian saucepan with water.
    â€œLily, go out on the balcony when you can’t sleep. Everything is very—very benevolent here. But I don’t like the idea of you walking around in the middle of the night. Okay?”
    â€œOkay,” said Lily. She sighed. She wasn’t sure whether it was from relief or regret.

FIVE
    When Paul returned in midmorning from his trip to Keramoti with Manolis and his father, he wanted Lily to go with him at once to the acropolis.
    â€œBut what happened?” asked their father. “I mean—Paul! Think of it! For thousands of years Greeks have been sailing the Aegean, a cargo of those splendid storage jars in their ships’ holds. And now you’ve done what they did—”
    â€œIt was just a big messy rowboat with a kerosene motor. When we got there, a couple of men helped unload the jars, and we came back,” Paul said.
    â€œTalk about understatement!” Mr. Corey exclaimed. “I’d like to hear your report on the Trojan War.”
    â€œWell—it wasn’t much,” Paul said flatly.
    Mr.