Free Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt Page B

forth. “Almost okay,” he said.
    “What do you mean, almost? Does it hurt?”
    James thought. “It feels tender. As if it could hurt. It doesn’t exactly hurt , but it feels like it will.”
    Dicey sat up. “We can’t go until James is better,” she said sternly to herself, “that’s
     the most important thing.” So, they’d have to wait another day.
    They had only apples left in their food supply, and Dicey wanted to save them, in
     case. So they went down to the little beach, leaving James behind. Three or four families
     already crowded the beach, and the Tillermans had to eat the apples for breakfast
     after all.
    “It’s a weekend,” James explained. “That means a lot of people around, especially
     on the beaches, I bet.”
    “But what’ll we do?” Dicey asked him. She answered herself. “We’ll try fishing in
     the marsh. You’ll have to stay here alone,” she cautioned James.
    “Danny?” a voice called from the road. “Is that you?” It was Edie, and Dicey stood
     up to show the girl where they were. Louis was with her. They had come, they said,
     to see how the third brother was and to warn the children that it was a weekend, so
     lots of people would be in the park.
    Edie was carrying something bulky, an instrument. She sat down beside James and played
     on it a little, leaning it back against her shoulder. The sound was part banjo, part
     harp. “You like that?” she asked James.
    “What is it?”
    “An autoharp. Here,” she said, and sang a song for them about a girl who wanted to
     follow her boyfriend to war.
    “I like that,” Maybeth said, when Edie finished.
    “I do too, honey,” Edie said. “Do you know any songs you’d like me to sing?”
    Maybeth shook her head.
    Dicey looked at Edie over James’s head and asked, “Do you know Pretty Peggy-O?”
    “Sure,” Edie said. She bent her head over the autoharp and her long hair fell down
     like a curtain. She strummed a couple of chords, then raised her face. But this wasn’t
     their song. This song was about William the false lover and how he tricked pretty
     Peggy-O into running away with him but then murdered her. Edie sang the song quick
     and cruel, with sharp metallic sounds from her instrument.
    “You’re a good singer,” James said.
    “I thought we were going,” Sammy said.
    “Going where?” Edie asked.
    “Fishing,” Dicey told her.
    “Do you have the hook and line?” James asked. Dicey nodded. “And worms?” She hadn’t
     thought of bait. Count on James to think things through, Dicey thought, and forgave
     him for his lack of persistence the day before and for being careless and falling.
    “Shall we stay with James?” Edie asked. Dicey didn’t object.
    When they had gotten out of earshot of the campsite, Sammy said he wasn’t going fishing
     with them, he was going to the playground. He didn’t want to walk anymore, ever. He
     didn’t want to explore. He wouldn’t get into any trouble. He didn’t mind being left
     alone. And he would not go with them, no matter what Dicey said or did.
    Dicey decided she could probably leave him safely at the playground. She instructed
     him to go back to the campsite if he got bored, not to go wandering about. “And don’t
     talk to anyone.”
    “Why not?” Sammy demanded.
    “Well, you know, don’t talk about us.”
    “I wouldn’t do that. I’m not stupid.”
    Maybeth and Dicey crossed the dirt road from the playground and found the path to
     the small campground. Another path led to a bluff overlooking the marshes. They walked
     without speaking through the warm morning. The only sounds were the rustling of the
     leaves above them and the rustling of their feet on the leafy ground. They emerged
     from the woods on top of a low bluff that marked the border of the marshlands. Below,
     the heavy grasses swayed. Narrow canals of water moved gently. The scene could have
     been painted in watercolors, so pale was the green of the grass, so subdued was