Free The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry Page A

good," Jane reassured him sweetly, patting his hand. "You adopt babies."
    "And you also take in needy children," said Barnaby A.
    "And hire homeless nannies," added Barnaby B.
    "I do like Nanny," the commander said, his face brightening. "She's a handsome, competent woman. She takes my mind off my sorrows. Where is she, by the way?" He looked around.
    "Tending Ruth and making dinner," Tim told him. "A minute ago she did the laundry and scrubbed the bathtubs."
    "What a wonder she is," murmured the commander.
    "She plans to wax the floors later."
    "An absolute wonder. Does she, ah, have a husb—well, what I mean is, is she a married woman?"
    "Oh, no, she's an old-fashioned person. A spinster of little means," Tim explained. "Well educated and of good reputation, but forced to go into domestic service because her father died in debt and left her penniless."

    Commander Melanoff sighed. "A familiar story. Like Jane Eyre. Well," he said, "let us hope that like most old-fashioned stories, this one will have a happy ending."

18. A Walking Tour Is Suggested

    "You're getting thin, dear" the postmaster's new wife commented one morning to her boy. "Have some more cream on your muesli."
    "I'm sorry, Mother, but I despise muesli," he said.
    " Deutsch, please," the postmaster told him. He wanted very much for the boy's German to improve. He thought he might like the boy better if his German were better.
    "Mein muesli ist dischgusting." The boy poked his spoon into the bowl lethargically. "It makesch me vant to womit."
    "He eats practically nothing," his mother told her husband.

    "He is lacking in self-discipline. Does he do his knee bends each morning along with his deep-breathing exercises? Does he read a chapter of the Bible every day? Does he pick up his toys?"
    "No. He spends hours arranging his little army men in battle positions on his toy table and then at bedtime he leaves them there. I've told him again and again that they must be put away in their boxes every evening, but he pays no attention. And his room is untidy. I've organized his clothing alphabetically, but then I go in and I find that he has hung his shirts next to his pajamas though I have repeatedly told him that shirts belong beside shorts and shoes. And the corners of his bed are not tucked in properly."
    The postmaster shook his head and looked at the boy with disappointment. Then he looked at his watch. "I am almost two minutes behind schedule," he announced, and folded his napkin carefully into thirds.
    His new wife smiled at him. "Lunch will be at twelve twenty-seven p.m.," she said.
    "Good," he replied, precisely adjusting the lapels of his uniform jacket and removing a piece of lint from his sleeve. He leaned over and kissed her on her forehead. "You have a hair out of place, beloved one," he told her affectionately. "There, on the top."

    "I'll rebraid," she promised him.
    "Perhaps," he added as he was going through the door, "the boy would benefit from a walking tour? A few weeks of hiking might toughen him up."
    After his stepfather was gone, the boy looked up from his uneaten museli. "Did he mean I would go all alone?" he asked his mother.
    "Yes, dear. It's the way that old-fashioned boys become robust and mature. Especially ones who have become wasted and weak, like you, and pathetic and disorganized."
    "Would you give me a map?"
    "Oh, yes. And some vitamins and cough drops in your backpack."
    "But I would be on my own?"
    "Don't be frightened, dear. Many old-fashioned boys have done it, and most have survived."
    "Could I choose my own route, or would you plan it all out for me in your meticulous way?"
    His mother sighed. "I would like to do that, dear. But it is customary for the solitary hiker to find his own way. You would be following your dream. It would be your quest." She hummed a few bars of "Dream the Impossible Dream" and went to wind the cuckoo clock that hung on the kitchen wall.

    Without noticing the dry, medicinal taste of the muesli, the