belting.”
“Why?”
“It’s a long story.” A story Batty wasn’t yet ready to tell Ben. It was only right that she tell her father and Iantha first. “So never mind, and promise you won’t mention it at home or to Rafael or anybody.”
“Okay.” He didn’t think some lady screeching was interesting enough to repeat.
“Penderwick Family Honor!”
“Okay! Penderwick Family Honor. Will you carry Minnesota home for me?”
Hidden behind Minnesota, Batty imagined her father’s face
—all
their faces—when she sang for the family, the surprise and pride. “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” would be a good song to begin with, and then maybe a Beatles song. Her father loved the Beatles.
But then she thought of Rosalind. She really should wait until Rosy got home. Could she keep such an excellent secret for so long, twenty-two days now? And—oh!—if she could wait that long, she should wait just one extra day and sing for the whole family on her birthday. As an extra-special birthday present for herself.
She and Minnesota abruptly stopped dead on the sidewalk. “Jeffrey’s coming tomorrow!”
“I know that,” said Ben. “Skye said he’d bring me a Celtics T-shirt. They just beat the Knicks. Rafael says there’s also a Celtics team in Scotland, but they playsoccer. And that someday the two Celtics teams will play each other, but in a game neither play, like ice hockey or cricket.”
Batty had stopped listening when Ben began quoting Rafael, diving deep into plans of her own. Jeffrey’s coming this weekend was perfect timing. He could help her put together a singing concert for her birthday. They’d done little concerts before, including one when she was five and just learning the piano. This, though, this would be the best ever. The Grand Eleventh Birthday Concert! And Keiko could help her figure out what to wear—something serious and dignified, yet creative and glamorous.
“It will be wonderful!” she said.
Ben was surprised but pleased by her enthusiasm for the Celtics teams. “Especially if they play ice hockey.”
A LONG ROW OF HYDRANGEA BUSHES ran along one side of the Penderwick home. Now, in the spring, they were mere clumps of sticks, drab and bare, with an occasional withered blossom from last year that had hung on through the winter storms. To Ben, the drabness made as little impression as would the delirious beauty that always arrived midsummer, when the bushes drooped with masses of multi-flowered pompoms, large as grapefruits, in shades of pinks, blues, and purples. No, what he cared about was the space between the bushes and the house, a narrow corridor of privacy he’d claimed as his own the previous summer. There, he’d stored the rocks not exciting enough to be taken inside, and he and Rafael had constructed things from them—roads, bridges, and building-likestructures that could double as military installations and alien-invasion forces.
After breakfast on Saturday morning, Ben shoved through the hydrangeas, set down a large cardboard box, then brushed away the dead leaves and sticks that had accumulated since the previous fall. The winter hadn’t done damage to his work. Good. Sometimes he thought he’d like to build real roads and bridges when he grew up. And maybe he could convince Rafael to be an architect, like after they’d made several movies and wanted to move on to new careers. Together they could build whole cities.
Ben crouched down and opened the cardboard box. First out, one of his most prized possessions, a model UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, with real doors and seats. This had been a gift from Nick, oldest son of the Geiger family across the street, handed over before he’d gone overseas to fly around in helicopters just like this one, helping to fight a war. Lieutenant Nick Geiger of the United States Army, that’s who he was now. Ben’s mom had shown him on a map where Nick was fighting: a place with mountains, desert, and lots of small villages,
“Why?”
“It’s a long story.” A story Batty wasn’t yet ready to tell Ben. It was only right that she tell her father and Iantha first. “So never mind, and promise you won’t mention it at home or to Rafael or anybody.”
“Okay.” He didn’t think some lady screeching was interesting enough to repeat.
“Penderwick Family Honor!”
“Okay! Penderwick Family Honor. Will you carry Minnesota home for me?”
Hidden behind Minnesota, Batty imagined her father’s face
—all
their faces—when she sang for the family, the surprise and pride. “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” would be a good song to begin with, and then maybe a Beatles song. Her father loved the Beatles.
But then she thought of Rosalind. She really should wait until Rosy got home. Could she keep such an excellent secret for so long, twenty-two days now? And—oh!—if she could wait that long, she should wait just one extra day and sing for the whole family on her birthday. As an extra-special birthday present for herself.
She and Minnesota abruptly stopped dead on the sidewalk. “Jeffrey’s coming tomorrow!”
“I know that,” said Ben. “Skye said he’d bring me a Celtics T-shirt. They just beat the Knicks. Rafael says there’s also a Celtics team in Scotland, but they playsoccer. And that someday the two Celtics teams will play each other, but in a game neither play, like ice hockey or cricket.”
Batty had stopped listening when Ben began quoting Rafael, diving deep into plans of her own. Jeffrey’s coming this weekend was perfect timing. He could help her put together a singing concert for her birthday. They’d done little concerts before, including one when she was five and just learning the piano. This, though, this would be the best ever. The Grand Eleventh Birthday Concert! And Keiko could help her figure out what to wear—something serious and dignified, yet creative and glamorous.
“It will be wonderful!” she said.
Ben was surprised but pleased by her enthusiasm for the Celtics teams. “Especially if they play ice hockey.”
A LONG ROW OF HYDRANGEA BUSHES ran along one side of the Penderwick home. Now, in the spring, they were mere clumps of sticks, drab and bare, with an occasional withered blossom from last year that had hung on through the winter storms. To Ben, the drabness made as little impression as would the delirious beauty that always arrived midsummer, when the bushes drooped with masses of multi-flowered pompoms, large as grapefruits, in shades of pinks, blues, and purples. No, what he cared about was the space between the bushes and the house, a narrow corridor of privacy he’d claimed as his own the previous summer. There, he’d stored the rocks not exciting enough to be taken inside, and he and Rafael had constructed things from them—roads, bridges, and building-likestructures that could double as military installations and alien-invasion forces.
After breakfast on Saturday morning, Ben shoved through the hydrangeas, set down a large cardboard box, then brushed away the dead leaves and sticks that had accumulated since the previous fall. The winter hadn’t done damage to his work. Good. Sometimes he thought he’d like to build real roads and bridges when he grew up. And maybe he could convince Rafael to be an architect, like after they’d made several movies and wanted to move on to new careers. Together they could build whole cities.
Ben crouched down and opened the cardboard box. First out, one of his most prized possessions, a model UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, with real doors and seats. This had been a gift from Nick, oldest son of the Geiger family across the street, handed over before he’d gone overseas to fly around in helicopters just like this one, helping to fight a war. Lieutenant Nick Geiger of the United States Army, that’s who he was now. Ben’s mom had shown him on a map where Nick was fighting: a place with mountains, desert, and lots of small villages,
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