Free Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'Engle Page A

since his accident with the seal he’s been more so, and sometimes he does not see anybody, and that can even include me. I’ve written him about you, so I’m hoping we’ll find him in one of his more gregarious moods.” He smiled at me, turning from the stove. “I’m considered an odd character hereabouts. Seth is considerably odder.” He turned back to the stove. “Your Aunt Serena’s waiting for you.”
    â€œJust a sec. I had a letter from Adam, and he didn’t seem to like Vespugia. At least, not San Sebastián.”
    â€œIt’s changed since the coup. As a Falklander, I’m always uneasy when freedoms are taken away. But the Vespugian
pyramids are extraordinary, and we’ll be in San Sebastián only a couple of days. It will, at the least, be an interesting experience for you.”
    Stassy had the tea cart all ready for us. I sat in my usual chair and noticed that Aunt Serena had the album on the table between us open to a snapshot of a woman standing near a group of penguins, black and white and smaller than I’d expected.
    â€œIs that you?” I asked. The woman was wearing what seemed to be the uniform in that part of the world, a hooded parka, the hood thrown back to show beautiful dark hair; and pants and high rubber boots. She looked not at all fragile, but still recognizable.
    â€œIt is, indeed, with rock-hopper penguins on New Island in the Falklands.”
    â€œIt’s amazing to see penguins and sheep wandering about together.”
    Stassy came in with a plate of warm cinnamon toast. “Madam can tell you a great deal about penguins, Miss Vicky.”
    â€œProbably more than she wants to know at the moment.” Aunt Serena bit delicately into a piece of toast. “But she is going to Antarctica, and I am merely preparing her for what she’s going to see. Cook does not always offer adequate explanations.” She pointed to a picture of what looked like hundreds of penguins. “Too bad the photographs are so small you can’t see their feathers.”
    â€œDo penguins have feathers?” I asked. “From the pictures I’ve seen, I’ve always thought of them as sort of leathery.”
    â€œNot at all. They have beautiful, dense feathers. They are birds, after all.”

    â€œBut they can’t fly.”
    â€œNo, they can’t fly. But they are birds. If it has feathers, it is a bird.”
    As Stassy left us, Aunt Serena said, “This is very much an in-between sort of year for you, isn’t it, Vicky? Are you being patient with yourself?”
    â€œPatience has never been one of my virtues. Ask my parents.”
    â€œI’ll make up my own mind, thank you. This is a growing time for you. Learning what and where your place is. Learning patience while you finish your education.”
    â€œThen what?” I demanded.
    â€œThat is what you need patience for.”
    â€œI guess so.”
    â€œIt’s worth it, Vicky, because I believe you do have the poet’s ability to see through the clouds to the light beyond.”
    Nobody’d ever said anything that nice to me before, nobody I trusted like Aunt Serena.
    â€œAntarctica should be a good place for poetry,” she said. “Do you know whether or not you get seasick?”
    â€œI don’t think so. I don’t get carsick. And sometimes the ferry from the mainland to the Island can be pretty rough. But I guess I’ve never been tested.” There was one half piece of toast left on the plate. The kids at school have a superstition that if you eat the last piece of something you’ll be an old maid—even in a day when the words “old maid” are pretty much obsolete. I ate it anyhow.
    She said, “The Drake Passage, between South America and Antarctica, is known as the roughest water in the world,
and having taken the passage, I believe it. But I think you’ll be fine. Do you have a