Rabble Starkey by Lois Lowry Read Free Book Online Page A

kill, only to save. My grandma was Baptist."
    "Well, my mother's not. My mother's Episcopalian, and at the Episcopal church they only dribble a few drops,
nothing near
like what she did to Gunther. And
don't try to tell me, Parable Starkey, that at the Baptist church they do it with their dress all ripped open indecent."
    "Well, no. Baptists are always buttoned up tight."
    "So, see? She's crazy as can be, and I don't want her apple on my tree." Veronica bit her lip and bent her head and went back to printing names in the apples. She put in her daddy's name: "Philip Bigelow." Then she started in on my cousins, the ones I had loaned her.
    I wandered over to the open window and looked out. It was dark outside, and there was a breeze, so that tree branches were moving. Through the big oak tree I could see one lighted window—the kitchen one—over in Millie Bellows's house, and I supposed that she was in there, puttering about, doing her dishes, grumbling and complaining.
    Closer by, there was lots of windows lighted up at the Coxes' house. Mrs. Cox, she wasn't so bad; maybe she was playing the piano or writing letters or something. Mr. Cox, probably he was reading his Bible, or putting lots of papers together with his billion paper clips. Norman, I couldn't even guess, but I was sure he was up to no good. In school, Norman was always drawing pictures with bombs and tanks and laser guns and such; sometimes, when we was all supposed to be doing silent reading, Mrs. Hindler would walk all casual-like to the back of the room where Norman's desk was. Then she'd swoop down, pick up the paper he'd been drawing on, and hold it up with a look like she was holding something extra-distasteful. And
she'd say, "Weaponry again, Mr. Cox?" before she crumpled it and threw it into the wastebasket.
    Looking over at the lighted upstairs windows in their house, I figured maybe Norman was in his room building weaponry for real. If the oak tree wasn't in the way—and maybe when the leaves came off later in the fall, it wouldn't be—he could aim something like a bazooka right into Veronica's window from their house.
    It sent a downright chill through my spine, thinking about getting blasted with a bazooka while standing there all innocent, in my nightgown.
    Gunther cried out suddenly from his room, a sleepy sort of wail, and we heard Sweet-Ho go in to him.
    "Gunther
never
cried at night," Veronica said in that new, angry voice. "Never since he was a baby, till now."
    She stared at the paper in her lap and suddenly commenced to scribble hard in that one empty apple, the mother apple. She scribbled it all dark green, so hard that a hole came through in the paper.
    Then Veronica started to cry, too. Not a sleepy wailing like Gunther, but a choking, muffled-up crying that made her shake all over and cover her face with her hands. After a minute both Mr. Bigelow and Sweet-Ho heard it and came in to offer comfort. I crept away, off to the guest room, and went to bed, because I didn't know what else to do.

    In the morning, me and Veronica helped Sweet-Ho do 52
the breakfast dishes. Mr. Bigelow, in his bathrobe, sat at the kitchen table with his coffee and the newspaper, and he read to Gunther from the funnies. Gunther was still in his pj's, eating his banana real careful-like so's he wouldn't smear it on the paper.
    "See?" Mr. Bigelow said, pointing to the pictures for Gunther's eyes to follow. "Here Snoopy's walking down the street, wearing his helmet, and look, Gunther, here in the next picture, he says, 'The Red Baron fearlessly maneuvers his craft.'"
    Gunther grinned and reached up with his nonba-nana hand to stroke his daddy's cheek. I watched. I never before saw Mr. Bigelow early in the morning, not shaved yet, and I liked how sweetly Gunther patted his daddy's whiskers.
    There was a knock at the kitchen door, and Sweet-Ho wiped her hands dry and went to open it. There was Mrs. Cox, all dressed for church, with an aquamarine hat