Messenger by Lois Lowry Read Free Book Online Page A

to watch,” he told him.
    Matty laughed at him. They were close, by then, and he could do that.
“Watch?”
he hooted.
    The blind man laughed in reply. “I have my own kind of watching,” he said.
    â€œI know you do. That’s why they call you Seer. You see more than most. Can anyone go to Trade Mart and watch?”
    â€œOf course. There are no secrets here. But it was dull stuff, Matty. People called out what they wanted to trade for. Women wanted new bracelets, I remember, and they traded their old bracelets away. Things like that.”
    â€œSo it’s like Market Day.”
    â€œIt seemed so to me. I never went back.”
    Now, speaking of it the evening of the new ones’ arrival, the blind man expressed concern. “It’s changed, Matty. I hear people talk of it now, and I feel the changes. Something’s wrong.”
    â€œWhat kind of talk?”
    The blind man was sitting with his instrument on his lap. He played one chord. Then he frowned. “I’m not sure. There’s a secrecy to it now.”
    â€œI got up my nerve and asked Ramon what his parents traded for the Gaming Machine. But he didn’t know. He said they wouldn’t tell him, and his mother turned away when he asked, as if she had something to hide.”
    â€œI don’t like the sound of it.” The blind man stroked the strings and played two more chords.
    â€œThe sound of your own music?” Matty asked with a laugh, trying to lighten the conversation.
    â€œSomething’s happening at Trade Mart,” Seer said, ignoring Matty’s attempt at humor.
    â€œLeader said the same.”
    â€œHe would know. I’d be wary of it, Matty, if I were you.”
    The next evening, while they prepared supper, he told the blind man he was planning to go.
    â€œI know you said I was too young, Seer. But I’m not. Ramon’s going. And maybe it’s important for me to go. Maybe I can figure out what’s happening.”
    Seer sighed and nodded. “Promise me one thing,” he told Matty.
    â€œI will.”
    â€œMake no trade. Watch and listen. But make no trade. Even if you’re tempted.”
    â€œI promise.” Then Matty laughed. “How could I? I have nothing to trade. What could I give for a Gaming Machine? A puppy too young to leave its mother? Who’d want that?”
    The blind man stirred the chicken that simmered in a broth. “Ah, Matty, you have more than you know. And people will want what you have.”
    Matty thought. Seer was correct, of course. He had the thing that troubled him—the
power,
he thought of it—and perhaps there were those who would want it. Maybe he should find a way to trade it away. But the thought made him nervous. He turned his thoughts to other, less worrying things.
    He had a fishing pole, but he needed that and loved it. He had a kite, stored in the loft, and perhaps one day he would trade it for a better kite.
    But not tonight. Tonight he would only watch. He had promised the blind man.

Seven
    It was early evening, just past supper, and others were hurrying, as Matty was, along the lane to the place where Trade Mart was held. He nodded to neighbors as he passed them, and waved to some he saw farther along. People nodded back or waved in reply, but there was none of the light-hearted banter that was ordinarily part of Village. There was an intentness to everyone, an odd seriousness, and a sense of worry—unusual in Village—pervaded the atmosphere.
    No wonder Seer didn’t want me to come,
Matty thought as he approached.
It doesn’t feel right.
    He could hear the noise. A murmur. People whispering to each other. It was not at all like Market Day, with its sounds of laughter, conversation, and commerce: good-natured bargaining, the squealing of pigs, the motherly cluck of hens with their cheeping broods. Tonight it was simply a low hum, a nervous whisper through the crowd.
    Matty slipped