Project F by Jeanne DuPrau

Author:Jeanne DuPrau [DuPrau, Jeanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2023-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

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Once she’d finished drawing, Lulu sat doing nothing for a while, having uneasy thoughts. She felt she was doing a wrong thing by telling lies, but it would also be a wrong thing to give away Keith’s secret. She felt stuck. She decided to go downstairs and visit Amity. It was something she used to do now and then, and she hadn’t done it since she’d begun living with her new family. She told Aunt Meg where she was going, and she went down the two flights of stairs and knocked on the Wings’ door.

Mrs. Wing answered. She was a short, slim person with black hair in a plain, straight cut. Today she was wearing blue pants and a tunic of lighter blue. She smiled at Lulu. “You’re looking for Amity, I suppose. Please come in.”

Lulu knew that Amity’s mother sometimes worked as a chef in a downtown restaurant, and that her father was a fisherman on a riverboat. Their house was very different from the Arlos’ house, even though the plan of the rooms was the same. Here, the rooms felt airy, even when the windows weren’t open. Leafy plants in pots stood by the windows. The chairs had wood frames and light green cushions. All the drawings on the walls were of river scenes or of fish in pale, shimmering colors. Right now, there was a scent of lemon in the air, maybe from tea.

Lulu found Amity in her room. She was turned away, looking out the window. Her dark hair fell down her back almost to her waist. Lulu said, “Knock, knock! I’ve come to see you.”

“Lulu!” said Amity. “Come over here.”

Lulu stood beside her.

“See that?” Amity pointed out the window, but Lulu saw only ordinary things: someone many blocks away hanging laundry on a line, a boat going slowly by on the river, someone running on the river path. “See what?” said Lulu.

“Those clothes on the line! The colors are gorgeous!”

Lulu saw that it was true. The clothes flapping in the breeze—too far away to know if they were shirts or skirts or what—were orange like flames, and bright red, and sunny yellow, and some deep plum color that was either blue or purple. She wouldn’t have noticed, but Amity could always pick out what was beautiful.

“Now you do it,” Amity said. “Find a beautiful thing out there.”

Lulu pointed down to the street. “The blanket on that donkey,” she said, “striped white and green. Is that beautiful?”

“Absolutely.” Amity sat down on the window seat, facing Lulu. “How are you?” she said.

“All right. Most of the time. Sometimes.”

“And sometimes not?”

“Yes.”

“Right now, not so great?”

Lulu nodded. She knew that Amity thought she was sad because of her parents, and that was true, she was. But there was something else about what had happened on the seashore that she didn’t know, another secret Lulu was keeping. And of course Amity didn’t know about Keith flying and all the lies she’d told. Should she tell her about these

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