Shadowmaker by Joan Lowery Nixon

Author:Joan Lowery Nixon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307823502
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2013-09-24T21:00:00+00:00

The next morning on the school bus Tammy wanted to talk about Lana Jean’s disappearance, but I didn’t.

“It makes me feel awful,” I said, “like I should know where she went or what happened to her, but I don’t.”

“Two years ago Lana Jean ran away and was gone a week. My father said she probably ran away again.”

I nodded. “Mom said most teenagers who disappear are runaways. Even the police think so.”

“But you don’t, do you? Your face shows what you’re thinking.”

I couldn’t tell Tammy or anyone else about Lana Jean’s telephone conversation. It was between Lana Jean and me, and if I were to blab it to everyone, think how embarrassed she’d be when she found out. “Let’s talk about something else,” I mumbled.

“Okay,” Tammy said. “Have you heard about Mrs. Walgren’s interpretations?”

“What interpretations?”

She smiled. “That answers my question. She’s big on symbolism and drama, and every year she makes everybody in her English lit classes choose a classic and work out an interpretation around it.”

“You mean act out a scene?”

“Some of them do that, but if you want a really good grade you’ll think of something else.”

“What else is there?”

“Last year, when my cousin Debbie was in her class, Tom Curtis got an A because he built what was supposed to be a mountain out of boxes and paper bags, all sprayed brown and green and white. At the top was a gold paper star. Debbie said that Tom got three of the kids in the class to lie at the foot of the mountain, looking miserable—as though they were lost, you know, in despair—and he pretended to climb the mountain, reaching out for the star.”

The bus bounced over a rut in the road and I grabbed the seat in front of me to catch my balance as I asked, “What in the world book was that?”

“Don Quixote.”

“There wasn’t any mountain climbing in Don Quixote. There were windmills, horses, and stuff.”

Tammy looked smug. “See what I mean? It was all symbolism. Tom was struggling to reach the unreachable star, and the kids lying around the foot of the mountain were people who’d given up. He used the song from the play Man of La Mancha, which was based on the book.”

“He must be creative.”

“You’re supposed to come up with something that will make people think about the real meaning of the story, but some of the interpretations are too easy and pretty awful, and others are so weird that nobody can guess what they mean.”

“Where’d Mrs. Walgren come up with such an unusual idea?”

“From Sheriff Granger. She’s been in his Classical Reading Society ever since he started it.”

I grimaced as I thought about Sheriff Granger. “Then I guess we’d better start thinking ahead. Did you say she lets us use any book?”

“Any classic. You can ask other people in the class to help you out, and you can use anything you want out of Mrs. Walgren’s prop closet.”

“What’s in her prop closet?”

“All sorts of hats, fake jewels and

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