R My Name Is Rachel Read Online Free Page A

Rachel.

CHAPTER SIX
    North Lake is a bowl scooped out of the mountains. Cutting it exactly in half is Front Street, with its bank, and its post office, and a few stores. All of it is thick with snow.
    Across the way a train pulls out of the station, puffing steam. We watch three men dart across the street and run along next to the train. Two of them hop on, but when the third one misses, he throws himself on the ground, pounding his fists.
    “Hobos moving from one place to another, looking for work,” Pop says as he gets out of the truck. He goes into the real estate office and talks to a man, who gives him a key; the man waves his arms around, probably giving him directions to the farm.
    We drive along roads, going right and left and right, zigzagging along, passing barns and houses that are falling apart. And then, somehow, we’re back in town. Lost.
    We start again. Joey and I look at each other. We’re sick of this trip, tired of being poked by the rocking chair, which shifts when we go uphill. Joey opens the picnic basket and we dive in, eating egg salad sandwiches washed down with watery lemonade.
    It’s much colder now; trees stand out black against the sky, although a fine mist of snow is beginning to fall. I’m shivering and my teeth begin to chatter. Joey knocks on the cab window. “Give Rachel a turn in there. She’s freezing.”
    Pop pulls over to the side.
    “What about you?” I ask Joey.
    “I’m fine,” he says. But he isn’t fine. He’s as cold as I am. Still, I change places with Cassie, taking a sandwich for Pop.
    Along the road we pass a house with a sign in front: DR. NICOLS AT YOUR SERVICE . Farther down is a farm with a white fence that needs painting. There’s a sign, too: GET YOUR GOAT. TWENTY-FIVE CENTS . Someone has drawn a small cup and saucer on the bottom of the fence.
    “Odd,” I say.
    “A hobo drew that,” Pop says. “He wanted to say that the owners will give anyone who needs it a cup of coffee.”
    Next there’s the quickest flash of a school. I swivel around to get a look, but then it’s gone.
    A wind has come up; it pushes against the truck, the sound of it lonely, as if we’re lost in the snow and ice of the Arctic.
    At last we turn in and bump down a rutted road just big enough for the truck. At the end is a farm. The barnisn’t red; it’s gray with missing boards; slices of a white field show through on the sides. There certainly won’t be a cow in there all by herself.
    The house is worse. Paint peels off in great strips, and the shutters, which must have been blue once, are faded and hang at crazy angles.
    Pop brakes a foot away from the porch. Some porch! The railing is falling off. Stacks of wood are thrown every which way.
    I look back at the path Pop’s created in the snow. “It was too cold to walk through that old cornfield,” he says. He rests his head on the wheel as I hold out the sandwich. He shakes his head. “I’m not hungry.”
    But Clarence is willing to forget how angry he is for a bite. He moves out from under the seat, peering up at me with his good eye.
    I tear off a piece, and as he eats, I touch his rough head, then run my hand down his knobby back. He’s thin and dirty and his fur is matted. But I’ve learned something about him. He’s willing to tolerate me if I feed him.
    Tolerate
. Miss Mitzi would love that word.
    Pop squints at the house. “The agent said there’s plenty of wood for the fireplace.” He grins at me. “Never mind. Next week when I’m working, we’ll be able to get the electricity up and running.”
    “We could still go back home,” I say. I’d go straight to Madden’s Blooms. Miss Mitzi and I would lock arms and dance around her icebox the way we did when President Roosevelt was elected. We sang “Happy Days Are Here Again” at the tops of our voices.
    But I remind myself that Clarence’s only hope is a barn with a bed of hay, and a stream with tiny silver fish for dinner. And Pop shakes his head.