The Tenth City by Patrick Carman

Author:Patrick Carman [Carman, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780545303835
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2011-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

PART 2

CHAPTER 13

THE LESSON IN

THE LEAF

Yipes was sitting in the cage, which was next to me, rubbing his head with one hand. When I’d awoken, it had frightened him into leaping up and banging his little head. It took me a moment to shake away the sleepiness and remember where I was.

“That must have been some dream,” said Yipes. “I’m not sure I want to hear about it.”

“Where has everyone gone?” I asked, startled to find only Yipes there in the grove with me. It was warmer now, but there was a lot of shade thrown from the trees above, and I couldn’t be sure how long I’d slept or if I’d slept at all.

“Pervis didn’t want to wake you. He’s gone to find your father.”

“What about the rest?”

“I don’t know,” said Yipes. “The animals have all scattered — including Murphy — which seems a bit strange. I think they’re watching for Grindall, but I can’t understand them so I’m not sure. They’re around here somewhere.”

I stood in the grove of trees and took the Jocasta’s leather bag in my hand. I wanted to remove it and bury it deep in the ground so I wouldn’t have to listen to it.

“I don’t want this terrible Jocasta anymore!” I yelled. “I’m hearing things I don’t want to hear, things I hope are not true.”

Yipes took his hand away from his head and folded his hands together, rubbing his thumbs back and forth in his lap. He was sitting cross-legged, but it was such a small cage that he still had to turn his head down to fit inside. I stood up and turned away from him. Through the trees and way off in the distance, I could see the walls of Bridewell, cold and alone, empty but for Grindall and his ogres — and maybe my own father, alone and searching for me in vain.

“I used to love Bridewell,” I said, the late-morning breeze lifting my hair in little waves. “When my father and I would go there — when I was younger — there was nothing I loved more than the excitement and the mystery of my summers. To explore Renny Lodge and walk down all the cobbled streets pretending I was on special assignment from Warvold himself — some secret task he’d asked me to do — those times were the heartbeat of my childhood. I would imagine that Pervis or Grayson or Ganesh were spies and I’d been sent to uncover them. But there was something special about those times, because while I enjoyed my fun, there was no real danger.” I paused, frightened by my own words. Somehow saying them made me even more aware that those carefree days were gone, replaced by something almost too real, too dangerous.

A wayward leaf fell from a tree far above, dangled on the air, then landed at my feet. I picked it up.

“It’s summertime, Yipes. Leaves shouldn’t fall in summertime. This one’s gone old before its time.”

I took the leaf over to the cage that held Yipes and poked the stem through so that it stood like a flower.

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