The Shells Of Chanticleer by Maura Patrick Read Free Book Online

expectantly.
    I had never seen anyone so happy to be alive. To keep him quiet, I forced out a small chuckle even though I didn’t feel like it. Then for good measure I added, “Don’t be scared, Macy. Laugh at your fears.”
    I sounded so fake that I made myself laugh. Bing tilted his head back and laughed at my compliance. He seemed pleased with me which made me laugh even more because he was so darned easy to fool.
    We left Summer Hall out the back door and walked down a little incline toward the hub of Chanticleer. Bing promised me it was a short walk. Finally I would get to see the heart of this strange new world. As we walked Bing pointed out the buildings. City hall was three stories tall, embellished with carvings of thistles, lions, and wild falcons; its grey slate roof had tiny round windows that looked out on the town like eyeballs, giving me the distinct impression that I was being watched. A wide staircase fronted the building and smack in the middle of the steps was a little garden, bursting with foliage and vegetation, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. I wondered what came first, the stairs or the garden.
    Flower stands with curving cast iron legs dotted the streets. We came to a traditional town square that held an old-fashioned bandstand with a domed iron roof and filigreed cast iron columns that were covered with carvings of flowers, chubby cherub faces, or that ubiquitous capital C. Fountains were inset here and there; some gurgled, some misted, some shot their spray playfully high into the air. A crumbled bell tower made of honeycomb-colored bricks sat off to one side of the square and looked centuries old.
    The pink sunlight filtered down through a canopy of leaves saturating everything with a rosy glow. Wherever I turned I saw foxglove and phlox and snapdragons trailing out of window boxes, or the flicker of crystal in the pavement under my feet, or intricate buildings sprung from long ago empires, and I felt awe.
    Chanticleer was bustling with students all wearing the same expensive blazers that, whether garbing a body portly or bony, seemed to fit like couture. I wondered where everyone came from. They could not all have been hospitalized like I was.
    Careening toward me was a young girl balancing a heavy textbook on her head. She held her arms out stick straight in front of her to help her balance. Her plump pink mouth was downturned in a grimace and her forehead was furrowed with strain.
    “Hi, Poppy!” Bing greeted her.
    She kept her head as still as she could, shifting her grey eyes toward us and finally from her clenched jaw she uttered a quick, “Hello.”
    After she passed by he whispered to me, “Poppy’s afraid to stand up straight. She walks around for hours with that book on her head to train her body. She is just so uncomfortable with her height.”
    Bing turned back and shouted, “Poppy!” The girl stopped.
    “Stand up straight!” he ordered. “Shoulders back!”
    “I’m too tall,” Poppy complained, tilting her head and catching the book as it slipped off.
    “You are not too tall. You are just right,” he encouraged her. Bing looked at me and shook his head regretfully.
    “Nice girl, but she has it stuck in her mind that slouching will take inches off her height. You have nice posture, Macy.”
    “Uh, thanks?”
    I looked into the center of the town square where a crowd had gathered in front of the bandstand. On the platform a red-faced boy was reciting an unfamiliar poem in a singsong voice, his eyes and face downcast, his hands clasped in front of him.
     
    “A slumber did my spirit seal;
    She had no human fears:
    She seemed a thing that could not feel
    The touch of earthly years”
     
    “That’s Rafe, working on his fear of public speaking,” Bing added. “Hurry, Macy, and stop staring. The Prime Minister is waiting for us.”
    I quickened my pace.
    We turned the corner out of the town square and continued our journey, passing spacious tree-lined avenues, then