Those Who Favor Fire by Lauren Wolk (no david read aloud TXT) 📗

exam, on the sly. I used the second one. Which all six boys flunked. And you were right about them preparing their questions in advance. One of the six was so lazy that he didn’t even look at the exam. He simply handed in the blue book he’d brought with him. The right answers to the wrong questions. Such a waste. None of those boys bothered to study at all, probably didn’t go to lecture or read a thing all semester. We’ll be more careful in the future.”

“So will I,” she said.

And, once again, Rachel thought that was that. An end to things. And this time she was right, for she left town that afternoon just as she’d planned, with all of her things in one battered trunk and not a single loose thread to trip her up.

One week later Rachel stood in her kitchen, thinking of these things, while she prepared her supper. When she noticed the big bowl of salad sitting on the counter at her elbow she was surprised, for she could not remember making it. She felt oddly refreshed, purged, and intensely hungry.

Rachel wiped her hands on a clean dish towel, filled a hollowed-out green pepper with cold water from a jug in the fridge, and drank it down in one long swallow. The water was so cold that she felt it in her jawbone. Then she bit off a chunk of pepper, chopped the rest into bits, and threw them in the bowl. She tossed the salad and ate it much as an animal might: to sustain herself, without fanfare, nothing more.

After the salad she was still hungry, so she grabbed a mug of milk and a pan of brownies she had baked at three o’clock that morning and headed out the back door.

It was a beautiful May evening. The trees were finally in full leaf and the lilac in bloom. The sky was a shade of blue that winter cannot achieve: soft, deep, and variegated, like the eggs of some birds.

Rachel dragged a little cast-iron table over to her tree-slung hammock and arranged the milk and brownies where she could reach them.

“Ahhh,” she sighed as she sank back into the ropes. She heard her neighbors down the hill calling their children in for supper. She heard the infrequent passage of cars along Maple Street at the bottom of the hill. She heard the faint but invigorating clamor of geese, far above, straining northward. And, as she swallowed the last of a brownie and reached for another, she heard a screech of metal, a yelp of brakes, and, after a moment, a shout of consternation. Someone unfamiliar with Belle Haven had tried to drive something large over the narrow bridge that crossed Raccoon Creek. Rachel knew she would hear all about it the next morning when Ed delivered her mail. She grinned shamelessly up at the darkening sky, made a pillow out of her arm, and felt glad all over again to be back where she belonged.

Chapter 9

        Rachel woke up early the next morning with the irrepressible notion that something unusual would happen before long. To her. Something she might not really notice or fully appreciate. Like a seed, something that would lead to a blossom of sorts, or a fruit. She felt strangely hollow and profoundly hungry. Her skin felt hot and flawless beneath the early-summer blanket. Although it was barely light outside, she was completely awake and felt so competent, so primed, that she craved conversation as much as food. So she sprang from her bed, threw herself into a cool shower, dressed in clothes she’d just laundered—every stitch—and strode out the door with omelets on her mind.

Angela’s Kitchen served the best breakfast in Belle Haven. It was clean, and its big ovens sent fragrant drifts clear out to the sidewalk. It was run by a woman who knew how to cook, how to feed people, and how to get along without a husband who was never coming back. Her nine-year-old son, Rusty, made her as happy as she had ever hoped to be. Every time she found a quarter lurking in the shadow of a coffee cup, she tossed it into the shiny metal bucket that sat beside the coffeemaker. So far she had emptied the bucket fifty times. No one ever stiffed Angela. Everyone in town knew she was saving the money for Rusty’s education.

“I don’t really care whether he gets it in a school or on the road,” Angela always said. “As long as he gets it.”

When Rachel walked into the coffee shop at seven o’clock that morning, Angela had just pulled eight dozen cinnamon rolls from her great oven and the air was thick with yeasty steam. The smell of fresh coffee, cinnamon, and bacon made Rachel feel almost dangerously hungry, as if she would fight for her food if necessary.

“Well, bless my soul, if it isn’t ravishing Rachel.” Angela glanced at her watch, lit a cigarette, and waved the match at an empty stool. “Get your ass over here and tell me what has driven you from your bed at such an ungodly hour.”

“What ever happened to ‘Good morning’?” Rachel said, settling herself at the Formica counter. “I’m hungry, that’s all. And I’m out of bread and eggs. And your cinnamon rolls just happen to be slightly better than mine. Slightly.” She held up a thumb and forefinger so they were almost touching. “Now fetch me some coffee, please, before I lose my mind.”

A couple of workingmen sat at a corner table by the window, nursing their coffees and silently contemplating the sun. Otherwise, the shop was empty. Angela had already been working for hours, getting everything ready for the breakfast crowd, which would be on its way soon. She was a young but perpetually tired woman who looked too much like her mother and not enough like her son.

“You’re getting skinny, Angie,” Rachel said, wondering again what it would be like to have a sister. “Tell