Free Autumn Street by Lois Lowry

Charles wouldn't be scared of him at
all.
"

10
    "G OOD MORNING , E LIZABETH ," Great-aunt Caroline said. "You've brought a friend, I see." She said it without raising her eyebrows, so I took Charles by the hand and led him into the aunts' cool green kitchen where translucent curtains suffused the sunlight and there were always grapes as pale as ghosts' eyes in a bowl.
    "Charles, this is my Great-aunt Caroline. Great-aunt Caroline, this is Charles.
    Charles stood gravely in the center of the kitchen, his brown legs below his shorts dusty with dirt that
turned them beige, the opposite of the way that dirt affected my own scabbed knees.
    "How do you do," he said, and held out his hand to Great-aunt Caroline, who took it firmly for a moment in her own.
    "I'll call my sisters," Great-aunt Caroline said, "and we can all have some iced tea in the parlor. Isn't it hot? August always seems to be the hottest month, I think.
    "Florence? Philippa? We have company!" she called up the stairs into the dim hallway above. I could hear their feet, soft as moths against a windowpane, as they came from their rooms.
    "Today is Charles' birthday," I explained, when we were all seated in the parlor, Charles and I together on the crushed-velvet settee, our legs dangling. "And he came to visit Tatie because she made him a special cake with seven candles.
    "Tatie is Charles' grandmother," I added, on the chance that the great-aunts might not know that.
    Charles was not saying very much. But he was sipping his tall glass of iced tea politely.
    "Well, my goodness, a birthday boy!" said Great-aunt Philippa. I had trouble, sometimes, telling the aunts apart. But Philippa was the one who wore a large diamond ring. She had been engaged, long ago, Tatie had told me, but the man had married someone
else. The other aunts had never been engaged at all. I wondered if they were ever jealous of Philippa and her diamond ring that still, after so many years, sparkled the way wet spiderwebs did in sunshine. "And you're Tatie's grandson. Tell me, Charles, do you call her Grandmother, or do you call her Tatie the way we all do?"
    "I calls her Tatie. She like that better."
    "Sweet Potatie," I announced. "That's what Charles and I call her sometimes, just teasing."
    "Her real name Titania," Charles said suddenly, to the great-aunts. I looked at him in astonishment. I had never known that before.
    Great-aunt Florence sat up straight in her rocker with interest. "Titania! Why, that's Shakespeare! Did you know that, Charles?"
    "No ma'am."
    "Well, my goodness, that's from
A Midsummer Night's Dream!
Titania was Queen of the Fairies."
    Charles sipped his tea. "I likes stories about fairies."
    Great-aunt Florence leaned forward and looked at him more carefully. "Do you go to school, Charles?"
    "No ma'am. I just be seven today. When Fall come, then I go to first grade."
    "So you don't read yet, Charles?"
    "No ma'am."
    "I can read," I said.
    "Philippa. Caroline. I've had a wonderful idea. Why couldn't we divide the parts, the three of us, and we could read
A Midsummer Night's Dream
to Charles. He says he likes stories about fairies. Now we can't do it today, Charles, because ray sisters and I will need some time for preparation..."
    "I taught myself to read when I was four," I said loudly, but no one seemed to be listening.
    "I can come back," said Charles. He set his empty glass on the silver tray, took a pink linen napkin, and wiped his mouth carefully. I had already wiped my own mouth with the back of my hand.
    "Yes, he can come back. We shall do that some day very soon, Charles." Great-aunt Florence leaned back, her eyes excited and planning.
    "Don't we have some cupcakes left from Wednesday, Caroline?" asked Philippa. "It is Charles' birthday, after all."
    They brought cupcakes, frosted with chocolate, baked in little pleated paper cups, on a flowered plate.
    "Tatie, she make good cupcakes," said Charles, taking one. "But these cupcakes, they look as good as