Daughters of Eve by Lois Duncan

Author:Lois Duncan [DUNCAN, LOIS]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: JUV018000
ISBN: 9780316194532
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2011-10-03T04:00:00+00:00

At 10:30 p.m. the DJ took a break, and Mr. Shelby, the principal of Modesta High, announced the results of the elections for homecoming queen. Peter Grange proudly escorted a smiling Madison Ellis to the front of the gym to don her crown and conduct the drawing for the prizes that had been donated in support of the athletic fund.

Most of the winners weren’t present for the drawing. The exception was Tammy Carncross’s parents, who were chaperoning. They received a set of stainless steel steak knives.

“Now all we need are the steaks to go with them,” Mrs. Carncross said lightheartedly as her husband returned from his trip to the band platform to collect the prize.

“Look on the bright side. There’s no law that says we can’t use them on hamburgers.”

“The way I fry hamburgers, I’d say that’s a good idea.”

They laughed together. Lil Carncross’s hamburgers were a family joke.

“It’s just that hamburgers are such boring things to cook,” she would explain apologetically after each disaster. “They lie there in the pan doing nothing for so long that your mind starts to wander, and the next thing you know they’ve taken off on you and turned to charcoal.”

After twenty years of marriage, Dan Carncross accepted his wife’s wandering mind in the same way that he accepted the dreamy eyes that floated soft and unfocused behind the lenses of her glasses and the disarray of curly hair that wouldn’t lie in one direction. They supplied a certain winsomeness in sharp contrast with the image of the professional journalist whose witty commentaries on small-town life appeared on the pages of national magazines.

“Congratulations!” Ann Whitten called as she worked her way toward them through the crowd. “That’s what Dave and I were hoping to win, but Madison blew it. She pulled out your ticket instead!”

“You’re the ones who should be congratulated,” Mrs. Carncross said warmly to the bright-faced girl and the broad-shouldered young man beside her. “I haven’t seen you since the announcement in the paper. Will it be a June wedding?”

“It was going to be,” Ann said, “but plans have changed a little. Now we’re thinking more like a year from this coming Christmas.”

“Ann’s won herself a scholarship to art school,” Dave Brewer told them. “A real well-known one in Boston. It seemed like too good an opportunity for her to turn it down.”

“That’s wonderful, Ann,” Dan Carncross said. “I didn’t have any idea you were applying for something like that.”

“Well, actually I didn’t,” Ann said. “Ms. Stark is the one who did it. She mailed in some of my sketches. She studied under Mr. Griffith, the head of the institute, back when she was in college. She wrote and recommended me. I almost passed out when I found out about it. I still can’t believe it! It’s like a miracle.”

“Which reminds me, I’ve never seen the miracle woman,” Lil Carncross said. “All you girls talk about Ms. Stark so much, I’d like to meet her. Is she here tonight?”

“She was supposed to be chaperoning, but I haven’t seen her,” her husband said.

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