The Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall Read Free Book Online Page A

clarinet case and a small silvery something that he handed to Batty.
    “It’s a harmonica. If you like, you can keep it, and I’ll teach you how to play. Think how surprised Rosalind will be when you play a song for her.”
    Batty turned the harmonica over and over and let Hound sniff it. She’d seen one before, and had even blown on it, but no one had ever offered to teach her a real song. Penderwicks didn’t play songs on instruments. Rosalind and Skye had both tried music lessons when they were younger, and they’d been so miserably bad at them that Jane hadn’t bothered.
    “I don’t know,” she said, though she longed to try.Jeffrey was right—how surprised Rosalind would be, and Daddy and Iantha, too. And Ben, why, she could teach Ben everything Jeffrey taught her. “Well, maybe.”
    “Good. Now blow into it.”
    She blew and heard music coming out. She blew some more, then sucked in instead of blowing out, and although this was a mistake, music still came out, and it hadn’t been a mistake after all. Batty was astonished, and Hound, who had suffered through the older sisters’ struggles with music, was even more so.
    “Teach me more,” she said. “Please.”
    And right there, with the rushing, crashing waves for accompaniment, Batty had her first-ever music lesson. Jeffrey showed her how to make her mouth smaller to keep from playing lots of notes all at once, and talked a little about the difference between blowing in and out—though Batty didn’t get all that right away—and when she had a little more confidence, he started teaching her a song. He played one note at a time on his clarinet, then waited for her to find that same note on her harmonica before he went on to the next. They did that for six whole notes, and then together they played the six notes all in a row, and Batty couldn’t have been happier if she’d had an entire orchestra behind her.
    “Again?” she asked.
    “We need to go back to sleep, but I can show you more tomorrow.”
    “Yes, please.” She stood up and took his hand. “Maybe I’ll be a musician when I grow up, just like you.”
    “I’d like that,” Jeffrey said, and took her and Hound inside and put them safely back to bed.

CHAPTER FIVE
An Accident
    E VEN WITH HER HEAD UNDER THE PILLOW , Jane could hear the harmonica. She knew what time it was, and there was no reason for anyone to be playing a harmonica at eight o’clock in the morning. Unless Jeffrey was having an uncontrolled urge to play music, any music. But whoever was playing seemed to be playing the same notes over and over, and Jeffrey wouldn’t torture people like that, especially not this early. It couldn’t be Skye, because she was still asleep in the cot next to Jane’s, and Aunt Claire had never shown interest in harmonicas or any other musical instruments. Which left only one possibility.
    Jane came out from under her pillow and shook Skye. “You’d better go see what Batty’s doing. I think she’s got hold of a harmonica.”
    “Impossible,” mumbled Skye.
    “Improbable, but not impossible. Go find out. You’re the OAP.” Jane went back under her pillow, trying to block not only the harmonica but the thumps and crashes of Skye getting out of bed. Jane needed quiet, because she was working on her book. This was her favorite time to think about writing—while she was still in bed, no longer asleep but not quite awake, or as she put it when she thought about writing her autobiography, while she floated between dreams and reality. She was trying to come up with a good second sentence. She was almost sure she wanted to keep
Once there was a beautiful maiden named Sabrina Starr who had never been in love
as her first sentence. But where to go from there? Last night she’d come up with several possibilities, full of words like
yearn
and
destiny
, but this morning they all sounded ridiculous.
    Now it was Skye shaking her. Jane’s pillow fell to the floor.
    “What?” she asked crossly.