The Aviary by Kathleen O'Dell Read Free Book Online Page B

are. Why else wouldn’t they wait until proper business hours?”
    “Maybe she doesn’t want to sell any more of the Glendoveer silver,” Clara said.
    “Oh, that,” Ruby said. “I just hope Mrs. Glendoveer never knew how desperate we had been to keep the household going.”
    “I’m sorry you had to worry so much. I’d have found a way to help.”
    “You did help Mrs. Glendoveer. She adored you, you know.” Ruby sniffed and dabbed one eye with her apron. “Now I’ve got to get myself out back to turn over the soil for spring planting. And, no, you can’t join me. Your ma would have my head.”
    Clara watched Ruby pull on her cap and rough coat, wishing she could keep her company. Instead, she wandered through the house to the parlor listening to the various clocks tick their way through the late morning. At last she rested her head on the old horsehair sofa and dozed until she heard a voice in the foyer.
    “Helloooooooo! Anyone home?”
    Clara went to look and had to laugh. The mail slot in the big front door flapped open and shut as if it were speaking. She fell to her knees and peered out, and was greeted with another pair of eyes.
    “Oh!” said Daphne. “It’s you. I tried to ring the bell, but no one came.”
    “I was asleep,” Clara said. “I can’t believe it’s really you!”
    “Did I get you from your bed? Now I feel terrible.”
    Clara flung open the door. “I’ve been up for hours. It’s just that there’s nothing to do around here.”
    Daphne looked past her into the hall. “It looks like a castle inside. May I see?”
    Clara recalled with a start that her mother was not at home. “Please come in,” she said.
    Daphne stared up at the starred ceiling. Clara followed as she ran her hand down the heavily carved banister leading upstairs.
    “You should see my house,” Daphne said. “It’s
sober
, which is supposed to be tasteful, I guess. Nothing but a box covered with shingles. But this …”
    “You like it?”
    “Of course,” Daphne said. “Don’t you feel you’re living in a fairy tale sometimes? With the romantic turrets and crooked shutters? I would.”
    Clara shrugged. She was embarrassed by an urge to smile constantly.
    “What?” Daphne asked. “Am I prying? I am. I ask toomany personal questions and am always poking into the out-of-the-way places. My mother says to learn to say things in my head before I state them, but that slows everything down to a snore, don’t you think?”
    “I …,” Clara said. She hid her face with her hands. “I’ve never had anyone in my house before. Not another child, I mean.”
    “Then I’m the first? Extraordinary! How old are you?”
    Clara peeked through her fingers. “Almost twelve.”
    “How amazing,” Daphne said. “I’ve always been surrounded by
masses
of girls. At boarding school, we ate together and roomed together and went to chapel together and all the rest. There is no mystery in that kind of life. Absolutely squashing.”
    “But why are you in Lockhaven now?”
    Daphne looked over her shoulder, then whispered, “Booted.”
    Clara stood uncomprehending.
    “Kicked out. Sent down.” She clasped her hands beneath her chin. “Don’t think I’m bad. I did a foolish thing. Our headmistress had it in for a girl who was a bit distracted. And the meaner this headmistress got, the more distracted the girl got, until she was unable to answer in class and kept forgetting to refill the cistern and sat up all night with insomnia and spent all morning falling asleep in chapel.”
    “So why did they send
you
down?”
    “Well, we knew the headmistress had written the girl’s parents about discipline, and the girl was sure her parents were going to write back saying, ‘Do whatever it takes! Give her a birching if you like!’ ”
    “A birching?”
    “A whipping,” Daphne said.
    “No!”
    “Yes. So I … stole her parents’ letter. And got caught. And I was sent home just in time to move with my parents to