Sons from Afar by Cynthia Voigt

Author:Cynthia Voigt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers

CHAPTER 9

Robin lived a couple of miles inland, in one of a half dozen ranch-style houses lined up on the road’s edge, backed by fields of corn and soybeans. Sammy walked his bike, because Robin didn’t have one. “I wish I did. I’m old enough to ride to school,” Robin said. “You ride to school most of the time.”

Sammy just nodded his head.

“My dad says it’s because we used to live in the city, because we lived in Kentucky before they got married. He says my mother keeps thinking Crisfield is the same as Louisville, with city streets. But it’s not at all like a city.”

“I guess not,” Sammy said.

“He’s not my real father,” Robin said.

“Who isn’t?”

“My dad. They only got married last Christmas. He’s a French teacher but my real father is a jet pilot, in the air force. He flew in the war, in Vietnam. He’s got lots of medals. He’s a colonel.”

The kid was really proud of his father. Sammy guessed he could see why.

“I’ve got his picture, I’ll show you,” Robin said.

They turned off at one of the houses, different from its neighbors only in being light brown instead of white or red. There was a car parked beside it, with Kentucky plates, a beat-up blue sedan. “Is that your car?”

“My mom’s. She’s a teacher too, but she teaches art, in the elementary school. But she can’t get a position until next fall, so she just substitutes. She promised she’d never substitute for my class. Her name’s Norton, not Kelly.”

“Okay,” Sammy said.

Each of the other houses had a car parked beside it. Each house sat on its little flat square of lawn in exactly the same position, like houses on a Monopoly board. A couple of the backyards had swing sets in them, but most just had grass that stopped abruptly at the edge of the field that lay behind, where soybeans grew low and bushy. Robin waited by the back door at one end of the long rectangular house while Sammy kicked down the stand to park his bike. The front door of the house was smack in its middle, facing the street, just like all the rest of the houses. It was all so neat and tidy, and all so much the same, it made Sammy nervous.

“Are you coming?” Robin asked.

“Okay,” Sammy said.

Sammy expected the inside of Robin’s house to be boxes, like the outside. But the inside didn’t match the outside at all. The inside felt bigger than it could possibly be. They entered into a kitchen, where plants in brown clay pots hung down in front of the windows, and the walls were crowded with posters in bright crayon colors. A little table in front of the windows had two glasses and a plate of cookies set out. “I’m home,” Robin called. A woman’s voice answered him, but she didn’t appear.

“Hungry?” he asked Sammy.

“Sure,” Sammy said. He sat down at the table, in one of the three chairs, and looked around the room.

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