Peter and Veronica Read Free Page A

said my Peter’s the best, that’s just what he said, the best student he ever had. He said Peter could get a scholarship to the Yeshiva if he wanted, and study to be a rabbi.”
    Mrs.  Rappaport stood up.  “I’m going,” she said
    “No, no,” Mama said. “Stay a while. Sol should be home from synagogue soon.”
    Mrs. Rappaport remained standing, but she said to Peter, “It’s raining outside?”
    “Pouring,” Peter said.
    “How come you went out on such a day?”
    “Library?” Mama murmured.
    “No, I was skating with my friend,” Peter said, “and it wasn’t raining when we started.”
    “Skating?” Mrs. Rappaport said, raising her eyebrows. She sat down. “Skating? A big boy like you.”
    Mama’s hand stiffened again on his shoulder.
    “Lots of kids my age do,” Peter said uncomfortably. “My friend is thirteen and a half.”
    “A Jewish boy?” asked Mrs. Rappaport.
    “No, a girl.”
    “A Jewish girl?”
    “No ...”
    “Peter,” Mama cried, “go change! You’re soaking wet. Why are you standing there like that?” She gave him a little push toward his bedroom, and as he hurried off he heard Mrs. Rappaport say, “A very nice boy, but you got to be careful. Even at his age, you never know ...”
    Everything was wet. Peter pulled all his clothes off and put on dry things. But he stayed in his room and wandered around restlessly. After a while he opened the door a crack and listened. He could hear voices from the living room, Papa’s voice too, but she was still there so he closed the door again. Wouldn’t she ever go home?
    He moved over to the bookcase and pulled out one of his library books, a big one entitled Snakes and Other Reptiles, and settled down at his desk. But he didn’t feel like reading now, so he put it back and noticed a couple of stamps on the floor. Mama had been cleaning again, yanking out his stamp album and all his other books in her endless pursuit of fugitive specks of dust. He clenched his teeth, and then suddenly his heart began pounding as he wondered if she’d found it. Quickly he pulled out the M volume of the Wonderland of Knowledge encyclopedia, opened to page 117, and relaxed. His pamphlet, sent to him through the mail for twenty-five cents, and entitled “Basic Body Building Exercises for Boys,” lay there untouched. But he’d better find another place for it. Where though? Was there any place safe from Mama? His chest of drawers? No. She was continually arranging and rearranging his socks and underwear. The closet? No. She liked to take all the clothes out and vacuum every couple of months. Under his mattress? Even that was no good, because she had this thing about bedbugs and was forever spraying Flit on the mattress and the bedsprings.
    Peter sat down on the bed and allowed himself a short but intense moment of self-pity. Was there no place in the whole world that belonged to him and only him? What about the desk? He had inherited the desk from cousin Jeffrey who was now grown-up and married. It had a lock in the middle drawer but no key. But he could have a key made for it, couldn’t he? Maybe Marv could help him remove the lock from the desk. Then he could take it over to the locksmith and have a key made. Beautiful!
    Peter grinned, but his smile faded as another problem presented itself. Where would he keep the key? Well—maybe wear it around his neck. No. He hated things around his neck. Maybe over at Marv’s house, and he could go and get it whenever he needed it. But Marv had a mother, too, who was always cleaning. There was Jack Tarr whose mother was dead, but he lived over on 166th Street and that was too far away.
    So—where could he keep the key: in his shoe, maybe, or ... wonderful ... now he had it. Quickly he opened his window and reached out, feeling around the side of the building until he found the old hook. A wash line had once hung there, but now only the hook remained. He could hang the key on a string and suspend it from the