Free The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall Page B

can say? Nice? It’s a brilliant setup to the drama of what is to come! Two sisters are in love with the same man, and then one of the sisters is chosen to be a sacrifice for the gods, and the other one—”
    “Jane, I don’t care about the play! Daddy’s home from the rink!”
    This time Jane heard her. She pulled herself away from the Aztecs and ran out of the room with Skye. They got to the bottom of the steps just as the others were coming in the front door. They all looked disgruntled, Batty especially. Skye and Jane learned later that not only had the skating coach been wearing a rabbit coat, she’d had rabbit fur around the tops of her boots.
    “Hello, everyone,” said Skye, not knowing how to find out what had happened. “Did you have fun?”
    “Fun? No.” Mr. Penderwick took off his jacket and threw it onto a chair—just what he was always telling his daughters not to do. “It seems that I have another date.”
    “So you liked her, Daddy?” asked Jane.
    He looked at her with suspicion. “Liked whom?”
    “Whoever—
whom
ever you have the date with, of course,” said Skye, stepping hard on Jane’s foot. “Which is who, by the way?”
    “Anna’s skating coach,” said Rosalind. “Named Lara.”
    “My goodness!” Skye tried to look amazed. “Who would have thought of her?”
    Mr. Penderwick took his jacket from the chair, then threw it down again. “Yes, who would have thought of the skating coach? Certainly not I. We were casually chatting as I was waiting for Anna, who was heaven knows where, when this Lara mentioned how much she liked classical music, and I agreed. Then she told me she had tickets for Bach this Thursday, and I politely said that she was lucky to have them, and then she asked me to go with her, and I, pathetic soul that I am, couldn’t figure out how to refuse.”
    “But you truly do like classical music,” said Rosalind.
    “Yes, but I truly don’t understand how this woman knew enough about me even to ask. Anna couldn’t have said anything—no, no, no, never mind. What a distrustful old father I’ve become.”
    “No, Daddy, you’re not,” said Skye.
    “Old or distrustful?” He managed a smile.
    If guilt had a color—say, purple—the Penderwick sisters would have turned so purple that it dripped off them and spread its way through the house, turning everything purple, upstairs and down. It was a terrible moment, and when everyone gathered in Rosalind’s room a little later, they agreed that they had never loved their father more.
    “And yet we torment him,” said Skye.
    “Should we stop?” asked Jane, for whom “torment” was almost as bad a word as “torture.”
    “We must have the courage to follow the Save-Daddy Plan,” insisted Rosalind. “It’s for his own good. It really is.”
    “I have courage, Rosalind,” said Batty. “But I hate that lady with the rabbit coat and boots.”
    Batty started to cry, for she did love rabbits so, and some of her sisters felt like crying, too, because they felt like low, unworthy daughters, and then they all slunk away, each to be alone with her misery.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Funty and the Bug Man
    B ATTY HAD FINALLY DISCOVERED how to fit all her stuffed animals into the red wagon. Sedgewick the horse had to be upside down, and Funty the blue elephant had to sit on Ursula the bear’s lap, but Batty figured they didn’t mind—a trip to the backyard in a wagon is always better than being stuck inside on the bed, even if you aren’t comfortable.
    Of course, getting the wagon and all the animals to the backyard meant many trips up and down the steps, for everyone had to go back up to Batty’s room again each evening—none of them would have gotten a good night’s sleep without Batty nearby—and since Hound had to go up and down the steps with her each time, naturally there was a lot of noise made in the process, especially when Hound let go of his side of the wagon, and it clattered down the last six