And Condors Danced Read Free Page A

to reorganize Woo Ying’s kitchen.
    “I didn’t try to poison you, Woo Ying,” Carly was finally able to gasp. “You know I didn’t. It was Aunt M. who put the salt in the sugar bin. It wasn’t my fault.”
    “Don’t know.” Woo Ying shook his head slowly, his face a caricature of suspicion. “Think you try poison poor Woo Ying.” Suddenly he stopped playing. “Come on in house now, missy. See poor Auntie.”

Chapter 3
    A S THE OLD man in his soft black slippers shuffled down the brick path through the beautifully tended garden, Carly skipped beside him.
    “Poor Auntie?” she asked. “Is Aunt M. sick?”
    “No. No sick. Lonely. Aunt M. miss you. Why missy not come Greenwood? School all done. Got lots of time. When missy not come Aunt M. very sad. When Aunt M. sad—very cross. Yell at poor Woo Ying all time.”
    Carly giggled. “And you yell right back,” she said. “I’m sorry. Really I am. It’s just been so hot. It’s a long way to walk when it’s so hot. But I’m here now, so don’t be cross.”
    Woo Ying glared angrily at her and she giggled again. That terribly fierce scowl had been a joke between them ever since she could remember. Nothing went back farther in her memory than the games she played with Woo Ying. She could even remember when she’d been so small that he put her on a chair beside him while he made dinner, so she could play at cooking. That must have been before her fifth birthday when she was still living at Greenwood.
    She knew her fifth birthday had been after she’d gone to live with the rest of the Hartwicks. She would always remember how she had cried on that day because Woo Ying wasn’t there for her cake and presents. She’d always remembered how sad she’d been on that birthday. But the next day had been wonderful. Aunt M. and Woo Ying had come to bring another present. And the present had been the best one Carly had ever received—a fat white puppy with funny brown eyebrows who was fiercely Tigerish even then, when he still walked with a puppy wobble.
    Aunt M. was not in the parlor, dining room, or in the library. In the library Carly stopped for a moment to inspect a recently opened book packet on the desk near the windows. Just as she suspected, it was from Sears, Roebuck, and it contained several new Bertha Clay romances. Carly and Aunt M. loved Bertha Clay romances. Aunt M. said that romances were their secret vice, hers and Carly’s—a secret that was not to be shared with such persnickety people as the members of the Santa Luisa Ladies’ Literary Society or, of course, Carly’s father.
    “Trash, I know,” Aunt M. said, about Mrs. Clay’s exciting stories. “But harmless enough, and it’s my opinion that one needs a little relief from edification now and again.”
    Carly agreed. At least she loved Mrs. Clay’s beautiful romantic heroines and dashing heroes and all their terrible tragic problems followed by comfortably reliable happy endings. She hoped Aunt M. would hurry and read this bunch so she could borrow them. The top book in the packet, Love’s Chain Broken , looked fascinating, and Carly was skimming the first page when Woo Ying called her.
    “You come, missy? Woo Ying find Auntie M.”
    Mehitabel Carlton, Carly’s great-aunt, was working in the greenhouse. Wearing a loose gardening smock over her green dimity, she was watering ferns with a long-necked watering can. Her back was toward them, but when she heard the squeak of the greenhouse door she began to shout without even bothering to turn around. “Where have you been, you lazy Chinaman? I’ve been calling and calling.”
    “No hear you call,” Woo Ying shouted back. “Tell Woo Ying work in garden, Woo Ying work in garden. More better stop yelling, old woman. Got company.”
    “Company?” Aunt Mehitabel turned quickly. “Carly, you good-for-nothing child. Where have you been?” She held out her arms and Carly ran into them and was enfolded in a violent hug and the combined