Hummingbirds Read Online Free

them, a door opens and from inside the school comes the itinerant bustle and chirping of students on their way to and from the cafeteria. Beth raises her head and sees a miniature-looking girl—obviously a freshman—come out into the yard toward them. When the door closes behind her, the relative quiet of the yard reasserts itself.
    “Hi,” says the freshman cheerily. “Do you know where the cafeteria is? Someone told me I could get to it this way.”
    The four girls look at each other, trying silently to decide who should be obliged to answer. Finally dark-haired and silly Caroline, still pretending she is balancing on a beam, speaks. “Only if you’re coming from that side of the building,” she says, pointing. “You have to go back in and down the hall all the way to your right.”
    “Oh, okay,” the girl says, not yet moving. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m new here. My name is Sally.”
    Caroline nods and smiles faintly.
    “Introduce yourself, Caroline,” Beth scolds from the table and lays her head back down.
    “Oh…sure. I’m Caroline. Nice to meet you. That’s Beth.And this is Andie,” she says, putting her hand on top of the head of Andie, who is still drawing elaborate curlicues. “And over there is Dixie.”
    “Ugh,” Beth says, after the freshman girl has gone back inside. “Was she a cartoon character? Sally.”
    “Sally,” Andie says.
    “Sally,” Beth says again.
    “I don’t know.” Caroline reconsiders. “I guess she seemed like a nice girl. Maybe we should make friends with her.”
    Andie looks up from her notebook. “She was kind of pretty. You can tell she’s going to be pretty. Can’t you?”
    “Ugh,” Beth says again, sitting up sleepily. “It’s too early in the year even to think. I’m not ready to go back yet. What about you, Dix?”
    “I don’t know,” pigtailed Dixie Doyle says, taking the lollipop out of her mouth with an audible slurp. It is the first she’s spoken in a while. “I’m actually kind of glad the summer’s over. I was getting tired of doing things.”
    The other girls stop to think about this. The leaves of the sugar maple rustle thoughtfully.
    “Everywhere you go there’s someone calling you wanting to do something. Let’s do something tonight. Why don’t we do something tomorrow. How come we always have to be doing something?”
    Caroline looks concerned. “But not me, right, Dix? I mean, you never thought that when I called, right?”
    “No, of course not, sweetie. Not you. Everyone else.”
    “You’re not kidding, Dix,” Beth says. “Every day it was something else. Now that you mention it, I’m glad it’s over.”
    “And my summer clothes,” Dixie says. “I can’t tell you how tired of them I am. We should just make a big bonfire of our summer clothes.”
    “And then start fresh next year,” Andie says.
    “I am so tired of my summer clothes,” Caroline adds, belatedly.
    Beth looks back toward the school, which seems to swellwith a frenzy of girls. “Yeah, I guess it’s okay to be back. I mean, I guess it’s all right.”
    “Sure,” Dixie says. “Look at it this way. If Carmine-Casey was a boat, like the Jolly Roger or something, then we’d all be pirates. You can’t deny it.”
    And they can’t.

chapter 3
    L onnie Abramson is the first person at the English department meeting other than the chair, Mrs. Mayhew, who already has her plan books spread out on the conference table before her and is sitting, immobile, with her hands folded in her lap. For a few minutes the two women just sit on opposite sides of the table—the older gazing down at her plan books without moving her head, and the younger delivering sighs and clucks and chuckles that seem to indicate she has a story to tell if anyone is interested in asking.
    “I reminded Binhammer about the meeting,” she says finally, as though everyone were his communal mother, sharing the responsibility of keeping him accountable. “So he should be