Free R My Name Is Rachel by Patricia Reilly Giff Page B

from the corner of my eye.
    I turn quickly. Is that the mountain lion boy, standing behind a fence, back by the trees? I can almost hear his voice.
You don’t belong here
. I take a step back.
    Mrs. Collins doesn’t see that. She waits for a minute more, but then she gives us a bag of feed. “To start you off.”
    “Thank you,” Joey and Cassie say together, but I’m still staring over Mrs. Collins’s shoulder.
    She turns. “The stream out back is great for trout.”
    She waves at the boy. He has a fishing pole in his hand, Was he at the school that morning? Was he the one who saw me?
    “Would you like to see the cows?” Mrs. Collins asks, but before Cassie or Joey can answer, I say, “We have to get home. We have to get the goat settled.”
    For once Cassie doesn’t argue. I can’t imagine why, unless she sees how anxious I am to get out of there.
    I take Xenia by the rope Mrs. Collins has tied around her neck and lead her down the driveway, listening to the bells on her collar.
    When we reach the road, I stop and look back over my shoulder.
    “What’s the matter with you?” Cassie says.
    I turn to Joey. “Did you see that boy fishing?”
    He shakes his head.
    I breathe again. We take turns leading the goat, petting her, and I’m so glad to glimpse the house ahead of us that I smile at Cassie.
    Dear Miss Mitzi
,
    Our goat is thriving. Xenia was supposed to live in the barn, but Cassie thought she’d be lonesome with only the marigolds to keep her company
.
    So now we have hay in the pantry for Xenia’s bed. She loves to eat apples and raisins and my socks
.
    She’s a climber. She stands at the window with her front hooves on the low sill, chewing her cud.… Is that what they chew?
    I miss learning words with you, Miss Mitzi. I love the sounds of them, the feeling of letters on my tongue and in my throat. I have to tell you that I talk to myself. Sometimes I make up words to go with whatever I’m thinking
.
    We miss Pop so much. Our letters are piling up on the table, waiting to be sent, and still we don’t hear from him. It’s a worry … such a worry
.
    And wanting to go to school is like wishing for Christmas. But I’ve done something I shouldn’t have. Every time I think about it, I go outside and run across the field to stop remembering what I’ve done. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t
.
    Love
,
Rachel

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    This morning, I stand in my bedroom with Miss Mitzi’s letter in my hand and read a piece of it aloud: “ ‘Look in the mirror and tell yourself what you did wrong, Rachel. Then figure out how to fix it no matter how hard that is. Know that I love you.’ ”
    I stare at the mirror, with its wavy lines. “I shouldn’t have broken into the school. I shouldn’t have borrowed those books,” I say aloud.
    I know I have to go back to the school. At least I’ve finished
Anne of Green Gables
. I loved it when she said her life was a graveyard of buried hopes. I close my eyes and wish there were a house down the road and Anne lived in it.
    I sit on the floor and read a couple of pages of
Understood Betsy
, but I’ll never get to finish it now. Then I tiptoe downstairs with the books, careful not to wake Joeyand Cassie, and let myself out. It’s early; a few stars are visible and a dusty moon lights the road ahead.
    By the time I reach the school, daylight has edged its way up over the trees, and the moon has become a pale white sliver.
    I wait for a few minutes, making myself count to one hundred and then another hundred, but no one’s there. “Poor school,” I whisper. “All alone with nobody getting ready to come for the day. No teachers. No children.”
    At last I walk around to the back, on tiptoes again even though there’s no one to hear. The box is still there under the window, but a few weeds have begun to sprout around it.
    It takes only a few minutes to climb inside and go down the hall to the principal’s office. I slip the two books back onto