Saving Winslow by Sharon Creech

Author:Sharon Creech
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-08-09T16:00:00+00:00

24

Don’t go

With the arrival of warmer days and nights, Winslow was now kept in a pen attached to the garage. Louie’s father had fashioned an overhang that extended from the garage roof, and he had enclosed part of the pen to give Winslow shelter from wind and rain and sun. Another solution would have to be found soon because theirs was not a yard in which you could easily keep a donkey. Not only was the yard too small, but it was also too close to the neighbors.

Winslow was now practicing his braying, emitting croaky, loud honks and eeee-awes throughout the day. Neighbors begged for mercy.

“The donkey is a cute fella, I’ll give you that, but the noise he makes gives me a migraine—right here—behind my eyes.”

“I think he’s practicing a warning,” Louie said, “when a stranger is around.”

“You mean a stranger like the mailman? A deliveryman? A cat? A squirrel?”

“Sometimes he seems to be, uh, singing,” one neighbor said.

“I’ve noticed that,” Louie agreed.

“But it’s awful singing. If that’s singing, then he needs lessons.”

Most annoyed was Mrs. Tooley, who lived next door, on the opposite side of Mack and his family. Mrs. Tooley had never been friendly, so it was not a surprise that she would complain. When Louie’s mother had taken a pot of soup to her one day, Mrs. Tooley said, “No, thank you. I don’t like neighbor stuff.” There was never a sign of a Mr. Tooley, and only rarely were there other visitors.

In the fall, when Louie had offered to rake the leaves from her yard, she said, “Leaves, schmeaves, let them be.”

In the winter, when Louie had finished shoveling their own sidewalk, he carried on shoveling Mrs. Tooley’s. She opened the door and said, “I’m not paying you.”

“That’s okay.”

“So stop it.”

Now Mrs. Tooley complained about Winslow. She would fling open the kitchen window and shout, “That donkey wakes up the baby! Make it stop that noise!”

Mack’s family did not complain, but Mack did mention that Winslow might prefer living with other animals. “What about your Uncle Pete’s farm? Isn’t that where the donkey came from in the first place?”

Louie could not bear the thought of Winslow leaving. Who would look after him as well as he did? What if Winslow got sick again? What if Winslow thought Louie was abandoning him?

At night, Louie looked over at Gus’s empty bed and thought, First Gus goes. Now Winslow?

“Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go,” Louie whispered into his pillow.

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