Free Water Street by Patricia Reilly Giff

“Can you imagine? Her family had so much money they could give away a book. It took me years to read it, but I kept at it, and now I know most of it by heart.” He smiled. “My brothers, Liam and Michael, would be surprised to know that.”
    Bird wanted to reach up and touch his face. She thought of him bent over the book, learning it by himself. Years. And all this time he'd never seen his family in Ireland again. He'd had only one letter, which someone had written for his brother Liam, saying that their mother had died, that Liam was back in their old house, and that no one knew where Michael was.
    “I look at the three of you, and I want you to have more than we had.” He curled his hands into fists. “You have to fight to get ahead.” He sighed, and she knew he was thinking of Hughie, and that he didn't mean that kind of fighting.
    “Take the book to school,” he said, “and take good care of it.”
    She reached out to hug him, and he patted her shoulder.“We're lucky to have you, Bird. Much more important than a book.”
    Da and Mama had never gone to school. What must it have been like not to read—not the newspaper, not the signs in Mr. Taglio's boot shop, in Mrs. Zimmerman's dry-goods window?
    They wrapped the book in the cloth again. She tore through the apartment, carrying it under her shawl as Thomas came down the stairs.
    In her pocket she had a lump of sugar for the police horses lined up in the street. Thomas would have one too. She picked a different horse every day. There were five, so she managed to get all of them in by the end of the school week.
    This morning she picked the gray horse with the white spots. Tall, with his head swinging—she could picture his mane flowing in the wind, and her on his back. Did Thomas's mother, Lillie, have a horse? But Bird had no time to think of her now, no time to watch the horse eat, showing his large teeth. She hurried those last few blocks, Thomas in back of her.
    She went to her seat, listening to the buzz of excitement in the room. There were books on almost every desk. Sister Raymond looked pleased as she walked up and down the aisles, her rosary beads rattling against the desks when she picked up a book or bent over to read the title.
    Across the aisle, Thomas's arms were crossed on his desk; he was staring out the window. She knew he couldn't see the tower without stretching up high in his seat.
    He didn't have a book on his desk. Thomas, whose househeld all those books. He'd even begun to ask her to take one of them yesterday, but she had cut him off. Hadn't she heard about borrowing from Mama dozens of times?
“If we don't have something, we do without. We don't want to be beholden to anyone.”
    Bird had told him that. She couldn't borrow from anyone outside her family.
    What had she said that was so terrible? She had seen it in his face, but he'd only gone back upstairs to his apartment and closed the door.
    Now Sister Raymond was near the front of the room, her back toward them. “Where is your book, Thomas?”
    He shrugged, still looking out the window. “Forgot,” he whispered, not quite meeting her eyes.
    Bird chewed on the insides of her cheeks. What was wrong with that
forgot
? In the short time she had known him, he'd never forgotten anything … what they'd had for dinner the week before last, the sick people Mama saw, Father Kinsella's sermon on Sunday.
    “Remember Aunt Celia brought me that locket three weeks ago?” she'd say.
    “Four.”
    She'd shake her head, but then realize he was right.
    He remembered everything. Maybe that was why he was such a good writer. What he remembered he'd put on paper, but it came out different, more interesting, more exciting than she'd ever been able to imagine.
    Where was his book?
    She had a sick feeling in her stomach. He hadn't heardDa tell her they had a book. He hadn't wanted to have one if she didn't.
    She thought of Thomas and his messiness, his spending time in their apartment. She saw how