Free The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo

his nose and slid out of his father’s arms.
    “I went and got your daddy,” Willie May told Rob as she swayed back and forth, rocking Sistine. “I figured out what you was gonna do. And there ain’t no telling what that tiger would’ve done once he got out of that cage. I went and got your daddy, so he could save you.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” said Rob.
    He went and stood over the open-eyed tiger. The bullet hole in his head was red and small; it didn’t look big enough to kill him.
    “Go ahead and touch him,” said Sistine.
    Rob looked up. She was standing beside him. Her dress was twisted and wrinkled. Her eyes were red. Rob stared at her and she nodded. So he knelt and put out a hand and placed it on the tiger’s head. He felt the tears rise up in him again.
    Sistine crouched down next to him. She put her hand on the tiger, too. “He was so pretty,” she said. “He was one of the prettiest things I have ever seen.”
    Rob nodded.
    “We have to have a funeral for him,” Sistine said. “He’s a fallen warrior. We have to bury him right.”
    Rob sat down next to the tiger and ran his hand over the rough fur again and again while the tears traveled down his cheeks and dropped onto the ground.

Rob and his father worked with shovels to dig a hole that was deep enough and wide enough and dark enough to hold the tiger. And the whole time, it rained.
    “We got to say some words over him,” said Willie May when the hole was done and the tiger was in it. “Can’t cover up nothing without saying some words.”
    “I’ll say the poem,” said Sistine. She folded her hands in front of her and looked down at the ground. “‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright / In the forests of the night,’” she recited.
    Rob closed his eyes.
    “‘What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?’” Sistine continued. “‘In what distant deeps or skies / Burnt the fire of thine eyes? / On what wings dare he aspire?’”
    To Rob, the words sounded like music, but better. His eyes filled up with tears again. He worried that now that he had started crying, he might never stop.
    “That’s all I remember,” Sistine said after a minute. “There’s more to it, but I can’t remember it all. You say something now, Rob,” she said.
    “I don’t got nothing to say,” said Rob, “except for, I loved him.”
    “Well,” said Willie May. “What I got to say is I ain’t had good experiences with animals in cages.” She reached into her dress pocket and took out the wooden bird and bent down and laid it on top of the tiger. “That ain’t nothing,” she said to the tiger, “just a little bird to keep you company.” She stepped back, away from the grave.
    Rob’s father cleared his throat. He hummed softly, and Rob thought he was going to sing, but instead, he shook his head and said, “I had to shoot him. I’m sorry, but I had to shoot him. For Rob.”
    Rob leaned into his father, and it felt, for a minute, like his father leaned back. Then Rob picked up his shovel and started covering the tiger with dirt. As he filled the grave, something danced and flickered on his arm. Rob stared at it, wondering what it was. And then he recognized it. It was the sun. Showing up in time for another funeral.
    “I’m sorry I made you do it,” Sistine said to Rob when he was done. “He wouldn’t be dead if I hadn’t made you do it.”
    “It’s all right,” Rob said. “I ain’t sorry about what I did.”
    “We can make a headstone for him,” said Sistine. “And we can bring flowers and put them on his grave — fresh ones, every day.” She slipped her hand into his. “I didn’t mean what I said before, about you being a sissy. And I don’t hate you. You’re my best friend.”
    The whole way back to the Kentucky Star, Rob held on to Sistine’s hand. He marveled at what a small hand it was and how much comfort there was in holding on to it.
    And he marveled, too, at how different he felt inside, how much