The Penderwicks in Spring Read Free Page A

any languages, except maybe Italian, because so many of the notations on her piano scores were in that language.
    But now Lydia, bored with Dumas, kicked over Jane’s stack of books, and when Jane stopped reading so that she could stack them up again, Batty asked her why she was sitting in the car. It wasn’t, after all, the most comfortable place to read a book.
    “I’m letting it rest. I thought I heard a strange noise, and then I thought that the noise might stop after the car rested a little. Here, you take Lydia and I’ll drive—you tell me if you hear anything. It could be my imagination.” Jane said this part about her imagination with eager optimism. The car was old and already beset by many minor injuries. Another could send it to its grave.
    As soon as Jane backed the car down the driveway, Batty heard the noise, actually three noises—a simultaneous squeal and moan, followed by a thunk.
    “I heard it!” she called to Jane.
    “Are you sure? I’ll drive it forward again.”
    The noise was the same with the car going forward, and even Lydia said so, but Jane drove it back and forth several more times, hoping that if her sisters wouldn’t agree about the noise being her imagination, maybe it would get bored with itself and disappear.
    “Now it’s getting louder,” said Batty.
    Loud enough even to summon Ben out of the backyard, his curiosity stronger than his desire to find buried riches. He’d picked up even more mud since Batty saw him last, which she’d thought impossible.
    “Ben, Ben, Ben!” Lydia tried to dive out of Batty’s arms, but Batty held on tightly, keeping her away from Ben and his dirt. One filthy Penderwick was plenty.
    “What’s Jane doing?” he asked.
    “Hoping that noise will go away.”
    THUNK! It was the loudest one yet, but the cry from Jane was louder still.
    “Now it’s stuck!” She was fiddling with levers and pedals, but the car wouldn’t move at all, either forward or backward.
    “At least the noise stopped,” said Ben.
    “That’s not necessarily a good thing.” Jane frowned. “Better go get Skye.”
    Ben went inside to yank Skye out of her world ofmathematics. When she arrived, blinking in the sunshine, she switched places with Jane and did more fiddling. But the car wouldn’t move for her, either.
    “I’ve killed it, haven’t I,” said Jane.
“Le morte d’auto.”
    “It’s at least gravely wounded.” Skye got out again and looked under the hood. Everyone looked with her, but nothing in there was obviously broken.
    “I think the sound came from beneath the car,” said Batty.
    “Maybe a big stick got caught underneath,” said Ben. That had happened once to his best friend Rafael’s car, and Ben secretly hoped to observe it sometime for himself.
    “I don’t think so.” But now Skye scooted under the car and everyone followed her, even Lydia, who thought they were playing a game made up just for her.
    “Snow White is dead,” she said, wriggling happily. “Lydia loves Skye.”
    “You can’t suck me into your princess stuff,” said Skye. “I’ll tell you instead about telescopes that find stars so old they existed almost at the beginning of the universe. Isn’t that more exciting than princesses?”
    “Crown!” said Lydia. It had slid off her wild red curls.
    “It’ll stay on if you don’t wriggle so much.” Batty grabbed the crown and crammed it back on.
    “Skye, what should we do about the car?” Jane asked.
    “Because there’s no big stick under here.” Ben had looked carefully.
    Skye sighed. “I guess it’s time to call Dad with the bad news.”
    So Skye called Mr. Penderwick, who called Ernie’s Service Station, who agreed to send a tow truck for the car.
    The excitement created by the arrival of the large red tow truck, with its brute strength, broad straps, boom, and clanking chains, kept the younger Penderwicks from thinking about consequences. But once the car had been dragged away, thoughts turned to what its