R My Name Is Rachel by Patricia Reilly Giff Read Free Book Online Page B

wait to tell Pop.
    What a terrible surprise to go back into the kitchen and see him with his head in his hands. And is it possible that he’s crying?
    Crying, my pop.
    How can that be?

CHAPTER TWELVE
    I don’t know what to do. I back into the hall before Pop sees me and tiptoe out the front door. I lean against the porch post and close my eyes. I raise my hands to run my fingers through my hair.
    Pop must be thirty-seven? Forty? I don’t even know. But I want to know this: what could make him cry?
    Joey comes around the corner, lugging something. “Hey, kiddo.”
    He’s carrying some kind of iron thing. He begins to whistle that song “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
    I put my hands over my ears. That’s the last thing I want to hear.
    He stops when he sees my face, but he pretends that everything’s fine.
    That’s Joey. He’s such a good egg.
    He raises the iron thing in the air. “A pitcher pump. Pop and I found it in the barn.”
    I nod a little.
    He leans forward. “We’ll have water in the kitchen by this afternoon. You just move the handle up and down, and water comes out like magic.”
    I touch his rough jacket, with its missing buttons. “Pop’s inside. And something’s wrong.” I stop short of saying he’s crying. I can’t tell on Pop that way.
    Joey’s foot digs into the mud. “He was quiet before, really quiet. All he said was that we had to fix the roof right away and get the water in. He seemed to be in such a hurry.”
    We walk around to the back and Joey peers in the kitchen window. He draws in his breath.
    For a moment we’re quiet. Then Joey taps my arm. “You have to be the one to go in there, Rachel. You’re the best of us, the smartest.”
    I’m horrified. Just horrified. “I can’t, but thank you, anyway.”
    “What we can’t do is let him sit there by himself,” Joey says.
    I swipe at the tears on my cheeks. What’s that word?
Fortitude
.
    “You’re right.” I smooth down my hair, which is in corkscrews all over the place, and head for the door.
    I slide into the chair across from Pop and look down at a brown paper bag. He’s scribbled numbers all over it. We sit there, not saying anything. Pop straightens the papers in front of him.
    “What?” I ask after a while; my voice is so low I can hardly hear it myself.
    Pop shakes his head. “We can’t—”
    It must be the farm. Something’s wrong with it; everything’s wrong with it. But we can’t go back to the city; I know that. The city is forever away. And I realize I’m not ready to give up on this farm, bad as it is. There are the drawings; and the seeds, which won’t live without a few sips of water every day; and the eggs, of course.
    And what about Clarence? I still bring food to the fence every day.
    “Money,” Pop says. His voice is as low as mine.
    “But the New Deal. President Roosevelt—”
    “It will take time,” Pop says.
    If only I could make him feel better. Should I remind him of the stained-glass window, of the chicks that will hatch someday soon, or of the frilly plants growing at the edge of the stream that Miss Mitzi would love?
    Pop runs his hand over the brown paper bag, over all those numbers. “I don’t know what I was thinking. We’ll never be able to get electricity. It’ll be a dollar a month. And what about the rent? I just can’t imagine.”
    “We don’t need lights. We certainly don’t—”
    “We need coal.”
    “We don’t need coal. We’ve got that fireplace. And sweaters.” I try to smile. “It’s getting warmer every day. And Joey says we’ll have a water pump.”
    I see Joey then. He’s sneaked around the front door and tiptoed through the hall. Cassie stands right behind him, her mouth opened in a little round O.
    Pop looks toward the doorway. “I’ve lost my job at the grocery store,” he says slowly. “It’s not the man’s fault. He has no money, either.”
    “Nothing to fear but fear itself,” I try to say. Isn’t that what the president said?