Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix Read Free Book Online

girls like that?”
    â€œOh, please,” Lilly said, tossing her head and shaking the perfectly curled tendrils that dangled from her coiffure. “I’m sure they don’t think, not exactly, not like us. They’re more like servants, who aren’t capable of thinking about anything more advanced than dusting and polishing and washing dirty dishes. And sometimes”—she giggled prettily—“my mama says they’re not even capable of
that.”
    Jane watched the servant girl who was refilling Lilly’s teacup at that very moment. She had the red hair and the pale, freckled skin that were so common among the Irish servants; she might well be the twin of Jane’s maid Sally. An angry blush crept up the girl’s cheeks; Jane could tell she was biting the inside of her lip the same way Jane did when she was trying not to cry.
    If I were that servant,
Jane thought, strangely,
I’d make sure I spilled that whole pot of tea all over Lilly’s white dress.
    The servant did nothing of the sort, only finished up pouring and walked briskly back to the kitchen.
    â€œYou sound just like my cousin Eleanor, wondering about such curious things as what factory girls think,” Pearl said to Jane. “Ever since Eleanor went to Vassar, she’s had the oddest ideas.”
    â€œVassar?” Lilly said. “Your cousin Eleanor is attending college? My father says college is too taxing for a girl’s delicate constitution. Not to mention that education would be completely wasted on a female.”
    It probably would be, on you,
Jane thought bitterly. And then she felt guilty. How was she so much better than Lilly?What did she know about, besides curtsying and dinner parties and prim, proper thank-you notes?
    Daisy cleared her throat, somehow managing to make it a delicate, feminine sound.
    â€œOh, Lilly, I did so want to hear the rest of your description of the dinner plates at the wedding,” she said.
    I need new friends,
Jane thought, and the force of her conviction surprised her. These had been her best friends all her life. If they were a little tiresome today—well, weren’t they always?
    At her earliest opportunity, Jane leaned over to Pearl and said quietly, “Would it be possible for me to meet your cousin Eleanor?”

Bella
    B ella snipped another thread, imagining that, as it fell, it turned into a grain of wheat pouring into a bucket in Mama’s hands. The next thread became a grape, one of a huge bunch of grapes that Bella’s brothers were cramming into their mouths—cramming, because now they had so much food that they didn’t have to eat slowly or savor each bite.
    It’d been three months since Bella had left home, nearly three months of working and sending money back. She was good enough at her job now that while her hands raced through the shirtwaists, her mind could travel anywhere she wanted to go. She’d mentally returned to Calia a million times, watching her family go about their improved lives-eating feasts three times a day, buying a new hoe to replace their rusty one, maybe even splurging on a bit of ribbon for Guilia’s hair. She loved to imagine Mama’s reaction every time more money arrived from America: Probably Mama would throw her hands up in the air, crying out,
“O, grazie, Madonna mia. Grazie, Dio mio. Grazie per la mia figlia Bella!”
Probably she’d weep tears of joy.
    Bella had no way of knowing what was actually happening in Calia. Neither she nor Mama could read or write, ofcourse. The priest in Calia was grouchy about writing letters for villagers; even if Mama talked him into sending one, Bella knew no one in America who could read it for her. So Bella’s daydreams about home didn’t change much—it was the wheat, the boys with the grapes, Guilia’s ribbon, Mama weeping for joy, over and over and over again.
    More and more, as she sat hunched over the