Free And Condors Danced by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

against her scalp. “Ouch,” she whispered, and turned her head to let Lila see the tears. But it didn’t help. In fact, it only made matters worse.
    “Don’t try that old trick,” Lila muttered. “And stop it! Right now! If your eyes are all red he’ll want to know why. And then the rest of us will have to blacken our souls lying for you, like always, while you just sit there, not caring. Not caring ,” she said again, giving Carly’s hair a final whacking brush before she retied the ribbon that pulled it back from her face. Then she turned her around roughly and stared at her. “There,” she said, starting for the door. “You’ll do. Now hurry.”
    “Wait, Lila. Don’t be mad,” Carly began, but Lila was gone.
    Father was helping Mama into her chair when Carly arrived in the dining room. Bowls and platters of steaming food were already on the table, and Charles and Arthur and Lila were standing behind their chairs. Standing because, at the Hartwicks’ table, everyone but Mama stood until after the blessing. As she moved quickly to her own place, Carly’s eyes flicked across faces, trying, as she always did, to read the secrets that hid behind eyes and lips.
    Father first. One always looked for Father’s secrets first, knowing that they would not stay hidden for long, and that it sometimes helped to be prepared for their sudden revelation. One looked for narrowed eyes and twitching eyebrows, and sometimes a particular kind of smile. Carly watched as he bent over Mama, pushing in her chair, and then straightened to look quickly around the table. He was a tall man, and something about the way he always seemed to be looking down from a high place made him seem even taller. Head up and back, his quick gray eyes moved, without stopping, from face to face. Carly stifled a sigh of relief. At least there was no eagle-eyed, bone-chilling pause on her, or Nellie, or anyone else. Moving to the other end of the table, he took his place behind his high-backed chair.
    Lila was next to Father. Her face was the hardest to read, as if her beauty formed so smooth a film that even fear or anger found little foothold there. Only the quickness with which her eyes turned away from Carly’s told that she was still angry. If she saw Carly’s humble don’t-be-mad-at-me smile, she gave no sign.
    Arthur’s lopsided, almost invisible grin, as usual, seemed to be making fun of something, and when Carly caught his glance he lifted an eyebrow and gave his head the tiniest beginning of a shake. The shake perhaps meant, Look out, you’re in trouble, or We’re all in trouble, or maybe even Good for you, Carly. You’re the only one in this whole family with an ounce of spunk , which was something he’d said to her more than once.
    If anyone was acting strangely, it was Charles. His chair was next to Carly’s, and as she looked up at him, his tense, nervous glance flickered around her without acknowledging her presence. It was like Charles to look without really seeing, but it was not like him to see and pretend not to. It seemed that Charles was angry too.
    And back to Mama, pale and distant, her shoulders hunched as if in pain, her eyes already lowered for the blessing. She showed no sign of knowing that her youngest daughter was in trouble again. Nellie wouldn’t have told her—not unless she had asked, and it wasn’t likely that she had.
    Then Nellie came in from the kitchen with the milk pitcher, and when she had taken her place they all bowed their heads. Silence. Silent waiting, waiting to hear who would give the blessing. Carly didn’t really think she’d be the one. Father didn’t call on her very often. But just in case, she got ready, rehearsing in her mind the words to a new one she’d recently learned in Sunday School, because Father didn’t approve of always saying the same one.
    “Thank you for this food we share,” she murmured silently. “Thank you for your daily care. Thank