The Penderwicks in Spring Read Free Page B

brokenness meant for the family. They owned one more vehicle, an old and ungainly clunker nicknamed Van Allen, but that wouldn’t be enough to handle so many people who needed to go in so many different directions at all different times. If the car was truly dead, another one would have to be bought.
    “Are cars expensive?” Ben asked Batty.
    “I think so.”
    He eyed Lydia speculatively. “Maybe we could make money by renting her out to lonely families.”
    “But since it would be Lydia being rented out, the money would be hers and she’d want to use it for more crowns and tutus.”
    “Lydia, you’d give me any money you made, right?” asked Ben.
    “Sí,”
she agreed.
    “And I’d give it to Dad and Mom,” he said. “Do you think they’d let us do it?”
    Since the Penderwicks weren’t the kind of family to rent out children, Ben didn’t bother to wait for an answer, but returned to the backyard in search of buried valuables. When Lydia tried to follow him, Batty took her to the front steps, a good place to sit when looking for spring and, because the afternoon was almost gone, to wait for their parents to come home.
    “Lydia, do you see Mrs. Geiger’s first daffodil?” She pointed across the street.
    “Purple flower,” said Lydia.
    “No, that’s a hyacinth. I mean the yellow one.”
    “Lydia likes purple. So does Tzina.”
    Tzina was one of Lydia’s friends from day care, and was often brought into discussions as an authority. So, Batty thought, purple it was.
    From overhead came a familiar chorus. Batty leaned back to look—yes, it was a V-shaped flock of Canada geese. They could be coming up from the south, or maybe it was one of the flocks that lived in Massachusetts all year long, making their way from one feeding ground to another. Batty had always thrilled to their honking, haunting cries. As had Hound. They would race together across the yard, trying to keep up with the big birds traveling on the wind, and afterward, when the birds were gone, Batty would imitate their call,
ahaawln haawln,
and Hound would lick her face—
    “Goldie put Frank in a box,” said Lydia.
    Batty came back into the present. “Hmm?”
    “
Goldie
put
Frank
in a box.”
    The part about Goldie made sense—she ran Lydia’s day care. But who Frank was and why Goldie would put him into a box was beyond understanding. Batty had learned long ago that asking Lydia direct questions rarely got results. It was best to go roundabout and hope they ended up at the truth.
    “What kind of box?” she asked.
    Lydia thought hard. “Blue.”
    “Did he like being in there?”
    This was the wrong question. Lydia’s lower lip started to quiver, and Batty—not for the first time—wished that Lydia had put off talking until she could make sense, like when she was five or six. And now she was crying.
    “I’m sorry,” said Batty helplessly. “I don’t know who Frank is.”
    “He
died
and Goldie put him in a
box
and Lydia couldn’t kiss him.”
    With this, Batty could be reasonably certain that Frank wasn’t one of the children at the day care. She went over the names of the animals living there: Leon the Madagascar hissing cockroach, Baloney the hamster, and—oh, dear—Francis the guinea pig, aka Frank. And now she remembered that Lydia had talked about loving Frank a lot, especially when compared to Leon.
    “I know that’s sad, but you really shouldn’t kissguinea pigs, even when they’re alive.” Batty pulled Lydia onto her lap. “Come on, I’ll sing a song for you.”
    Except for Batty, the Penderwick family wasn’t much for singing. Not because they wouldn’t have liked to, but because they couldn’t carry tunes, and so sounded—as Mr. Penderwick had once said after they’d all sung “Happy Birthday” to someone or other—like a flock of depressed sheep.
    However, Batty could not only carry a tune, she sounded nothing like a sheep, even one in a good mood, so she sang often to Lydia. Today she started