Eleven by Patricia Reilly Giff

Author:Patricia Reilly Giff [Giff, Patricia Reilly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-52285-6
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2008-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

Sam's Bream

A man with a scarf carried him over his shoulder.

Sam looked back at his house. His old house. Gone house.

“Don't leave the cat,” he whispered.

“No,” the man said.

Sam shivered.

“It's not far.” The man wrapped his scarf around Sam. Black

scarf, bits of red in it.

Goodbye, oldhouse.

Goodbye, river. Goodbye, big fish.

Up ahead, that terrible house.

Eleven.

13

Knights

“Let me tell you—” Sam began as the class line snaked its way to the music room.

“No, let me tell you,” Caroline whispered back, a smudge of lipstick on her braces. “Call your grandfather and tell him you're coming to my house after school today.” Before he could answer she held up her hand. “Don't ask. You'll see.”

“All right.” There wasn't time for more, anyway.

When the dismissal bell rang he hurried down the hall. He hoped Caroline wouldn't know he was embarrassed about going to her house. “Hanging out with girls?” Eric would joke.

Caroline knew, though, and hung back until they reached the corner. “That Eric.” She nudged Sam. “All right, your turn to talk.”

He gave her the clipping, and she leaned against a tree, staring at it. “No date, no name. Too bad.”

He took the clipping back. It would have been so easy, too easy. “I have the other papers for later.” He touched his pocket, then handed her his own paper. “I took notes.”

“Whooo. Who could read—”

“I can.”

“I'll tape it in the book, then.” Her eyebrows were raised over her glasses. “But you'd better translate.”

He began with Onji telling him about Mack's temper, though Sam had never seen Mack angry once. He told her about the boat, and swimming, though he knew Mack was afraid of the water. He told her about huge fish, fish that he was too young to remember. “I was there, Caroline, where they grew up.”

And something else. “I dreamed—” He broke off. “I think it was all nearby, all together: a river, the house where I'd lived with my mother, another place—” It was vague in his mind. “All near where Mack and Onji grew up.”

By the time he finished, they were walking up the path to the boxy blue house where Caroline and her family were staying. Sam glanced at the windows: no curtains, but her mother was standing there, Caroline's little sister next to her, both of them waving.

“My father's painting on the river somewhere,” Caroline said.

Her mother opened the door. Her sneakers were untied, her hair down almost to her waist. It was about the same color as Caroline's but it looked as if she hadn't combed it in a week.

It was easy to see why. She was running a pencil through her hair with one hand, pushing tangled strands off her face with the other, making the whole thing worse. And what was that stuff under her fingernails? Had Caroline said something about clay?

Her mother led the way into a tiny kitchen, bending down to open cabinets, and then the refrigerator. “I was supposed to get something for you to eat—”

“That's all right.”

“No, I did get something.

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