Listen for the Singing by Jean Little

Author:Jean Little [Little, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443148740
Publisher: Scholastic Canada Ltd
Published: 2017-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

For the next few days, Anna found herself thinking of the letter at the oddest times: while they were shopping for shoes, when she was struggling with homework, during breakfast, and nearly every night before she fell asleep. Then, bit by bit, the drama of her own life came between her and thoughts of Aunt Tania. By the end of October, it seemed the letter had come years before. They heard nothing more but they did not expect to. Anna even caught herself hoping they wouldn’t, because she was afraid of what might have happened since August.

Rudi had now almost disappeared into the world of University. He was sometimes home for supper but more often he came in late and ate what Mama had kept warm in the oven for him. He worked long hours in the library.

“He is growing too thin,” his mother worried aloud, as he hurried out of the house early one Saturday morning, “and he is not happy. Yet he will not talk to me. I ask and he brushes my questions off like flies.”

Anna was too busy in her high school life to be much aware of her older brother. He didn’t look too thin to her. And Rudi had plenty of reason to be happy, she thought. He was studying all his favourite subjects, and he loved studying.

Then, a couple of days later, she passed him in the hall downstairs and she saw his face suddenly blaze with excitement

“Oh, I see, I see!” he cried out. “It’s so beautiful!”

Anna stood still and watched him rush away up the stairs, his feet stumbling because his eyes were still bent on the book he held in his hands. She had seen enough to know it had something to do with a kind of mathematics completely outside her experience. How could he possibly get excited about anything in a book like that!

Well, Mama’s wrong about him being unhappy anyway, she told herself, going up to work on her own homework. She had not known that her mother’s words had disturbed her until she felt a sudden relief at seeing that they were not true.

She told Papa about it later. Her father smiled.

“Rudi has a fine mind,” he said. “It is wonderful to watch him discovering how to use it, to see it becoming such a joy to him. But you, Anna, how is your math? What are you studying this year? I have trouble keeping everyone straight.”

“Algebra,” Anna said, looking away. She wished she could ask Papa for aid but he had often admitted he was no mathematician. Mama kept the books at the store, but she had never studied algebra. Anyway, Mama was like Paula — quick herself but unable to explain to someone else. Rudi, of course, would know all the answers but he seemed so busy, and Anna had never in her whole life gone to him when she was in trouble. He seemed kinder now but preoccupied. And what if he laughed at her! Anna changed the subject.

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