Free The Silent Boy by Lois Lowry Page B

think it' s supposed to be only women and children," I said, after we were afloat in the yard.
    Courageously Austin said, "I ' ll make room for them." He leapt into the sea and prepared to drown.
    "Wait!" I said. I jumped from my lifeboat and shook a branch of the nearby forsythia bush. Its few remaining yellow blossoms broke loose and fluttered down. "Treasure," I announced, and returned to my boat. "Falling into the sea."
    "I drown surrounded by gold!" Austin shouted heroically. Then he added, "Also sharks." Those were his last words before he flopped over and was still.
    I noticed that a splinter from the lifeboat boards had torn my stocking and scratched my leg. Bravely, ignoring my injury, I picked up a small stick and used it as a paddle, stabbing at the earth of my yard to propel myself to safety while Austin floated nearby, his eyes open, golden forsythia
blossoms in his hair. Pepper once again lifted his head curiously and ambled down the porch steps, sniffing at us to see what was wrong.
    "No dogs allowed in the lifeboat," Austin announced from where he drifted dead in the sea, so I shoved Pepper away and floated on alone.

10. APRIL 1911
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    "Katy, wake up!" Peggy shook my shoulders, and I opened my eyes. It was very early on a Sunday morning.
    "I have a surprise for you!" she said, as I sat up and yawned. "Hurry and dress."
    "For church? It ' s too early."
    "No, not church." Peggy was getting my underclothes from the drawer.
    "The baby! Has the baby come?"
    "No—whatever made you think that? Here, stand up. I'll help you with your nightgown."
    "I thought I heard something in the night." I
tried to remember, but it was blurred now. "Father waswalkinginthehall,Ithink.AndIheard Mother ' s voice."
    "You must have dreamed it."
    She was right; it was as hazy as a dream and already disappearing from my memory the way a dream does.
    "Look out the window. Levi has the horses hitched up. Your father called him to come."
    I glanced down and it was true. The buggy was waiting in the driveway beside the house, and Levi was there holding the harness reins. Jed and Dahlia stood patiently. The neighborhood houses were silent. The sun was just rising. The light was pink.
    "Are we going someplace? It's Sunday. I'm supposed to go to Sunday school. These are the wrong clothes." She was buttoning my dress, an old one that I wore for play, not even to school, because it was faded and patched. Then she held up a pinafore and directed my arms through. "These are
play clothes,
Peggy."
    "We have a vacation today," she said, and pulled the brush deftly through my hair. "Now go into the bathroom and wash your face and brush your teeth. Be quiet. Don ' t wake your mother."
    I thought I could hear Mother and Father stirring in their bedroom, behind the closed door, but I obeyed Peggy. I was quick and quiet, and then I
hurried down the stairs and was surprised to find that we were not even stopping for breakfast. Peggy had a basket packed already with toast and jam, which she said we would eat in the buggy. I drank a glass of milk quickly, put on my jacket, and we were off.
    Off to the Stoltzes ' farm! Peggy said we were going to visit her family.
    She took the reins and to my surprise she could managethehorsesaswellasFatherorLevi.She chuckled to find that I was surprised.
    "I ' m a farm girl, Katy!" she reminded me. "Eat your toast now so you won't be hungry. My ma will give us breakfast but it'll be awhile."
    "Why don't we take Nellie, too? She could come, and Austin."
    "Just us," Peggy said. "Nellie doesn ' t like the farm. She's too fancy, she thinks, for farms. And Austin? He's still asleep. It's just us today, Katy."
    We had already passed the Bishops house and moved down our quiet street; soon we were on the main street headed out of town. It was so early that no one was out.
    "Want some toast?" I handed Peggy a half a slice of the toast smeared with blackberry jam.
    She took it and nibbled. "Nellie never goes home," she said.