Crossing the Tracks - Softcover

Stuber, Barbara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1416997040 ISBN 13: 9781416997047

Verlag: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

At fifteen, Iris is a hobo of sorts—no home, no family, no plan. Her mother died when she was six, and her father focuses on his new girlfriend and his shoe business and has no time for his daughter. Without consulting her, he hires Iris out as a companion to a country doctor’s elderly mother. Stuck in 1920s rural Missouri, Iris discovers that “hobo” might be short for “homeward bound” as she cultivates an eccentric cast of folks into family. But just as she starts to break out of her shell, tragedy strikes. Can Iris find the courage to carry on, and the cunning to outwit a menacing farmer?

Beautifully realized characters and settings illuminate a story suffused with humor, warmth, and tear-jerking drama.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Barbara Stuber is the author of the novels Girl in Reverse and Crossing the Tracks, which was a finalist for the American Library Association William C. Morris Debut Award, a YALSA Best Fiction for YA and a Kirkus Best Book for Teens. When not writing, she is a docent at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Visit Barbara online at BarbaraStuber.com.

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Crossing the Tracks

By Barbara Stuber

McElderry

Copyright © 2011 Barbara Stuber
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9781416997047

CHAPTER 1

APRIL 1926

I pull my hand from our mailbox, the letter bent in my fingers, my mind reeling. An official letter for Daddy from a doctor. A bud of panic starts to grow in me.

My father is sick.

I drift up our endless front walk, turn a slow circle on the porch before I open the front door. Up and down our street is empty and deathly still, like my heart.

I slide the letter under the mail-order catalogs on his desk and sit on the edge of the divan. He went to a doctor in another town to protect me from the bad news, to avoid the Atchison party line, the gossip. The gaping black hole of our fireplace stares at me. I stare right back.

My worst fear, that I am going to lose him the way I did Mama, is sealed in that envelope. I picture his coffin in the parlor, just like hers almost ten years ago. I squeeze my eyes shut to crush the scene and try to breathe.

A family of wrens chatters in our lilac bush, unaware that my family of two is about to become one. In a moment I’m standing at his desk. I retrieve the envelope and hold it to the light, but I can’t see through. I reach for the letter opener. With one simple slice I could know the truth.

No, not yet. Not by myself.

I sit in the desk chair, my head down, and listen to Mama and Daddy’s old anniversary clock on the mantel chop the silence to bits.

“Leroy,” I whisper into the empty room. “I need to talk to you.”

I fumble out the front door, trip over my books still piled by the mailbox. I stop halfway to Leroy’s house. He won’t be home from work yet. He’s still delivering groceries.

God…

I stand—a scarecrow lost in the middle of the street.

Maybe I’ll go see Daddy at work, just peek at him through the window doing his normal things—talking up customers, ringing the cash register with a flashy grin, waltzing ladies and their pocketbooks around the shoe displays.

I turn toward town. Or maybe I’ll go in the store and say, You got mail today from Wellsford, Missouri. Or Do you know a doctor named Avery Nesbitt? He sent you a letter.

Or maybe I won’t.

I stop outside the store—my reflection mixed with the arrangement of two-tone spectator dress shoes and fancy spring pumps inside. Daddy stands alone at the open cash register, counting the day’s profits. His back definitely looks different—thinner and more stooped than when I left for school this morning. I step back from the glass. If I don’t move, keep glued to this moment, to this spot on the sidewalk, time will stop and there will be no future to lose him in.

He turns suddenly, squints through the window. He knows he’s being watched. I have no choice. I grab the handle and push the door open. The perfume of leather and glue and vinegar glass cleaner makes my eyes water.

“Hello.” I sound croaky, cautious.

He nods as he anchors a stack of receipts with a green glass paperweight. He does not ask what I’m doing here.

“How are you today?”

He looks up sharply. “Fine!”

I twist my hair, helpless for what to say next. The backroom curtain hangs open. Daddy’s shoe repairman, Carl, has left for the day. “Do you… uh, need help with anything?”

“Nope.”

“How are the new Kansas City store plans coming along?” I wince. The question is so out of the blue, so idiotic and phony-sounding.

He shrugs, which could mean Okay or Can’t you see I’m busy or Get lost, Iris.

I turn, bump the counter. Shoeboxes clatter to the floor. “Oh, I’m sorry, I just…” I straighten the mess, swipe my eyes. “I’ll see you soon—around five, then.”

He glances at the clock and says not one word when I walk out the door.

“Bye, Daddy.”

On the way home I plan how I’ll move the letter to the top of the mail stack so he can’t miss it. I’ll be right there to help him when he reads it.

I shudder. A long-ago scene pops into my mind. At Mama’s funeral he said “I’m sorry” to her doctor. I thought it was strange, even then, him apologizing for her not getting well. That’s why he got rid of most all her belongings except the secretary desk, as though her hatpins and stockings had tuberculosis too. To him, illness is weakness. He still stiffens when I sneeze, scowls at every cough.

My hands turn icy. I cannot imagine how he will ever admit that being sick could happen to him.

But now he will finally need me for something… to help him get well.

My eyes fill with tears. He has got to get well.

My father sorts the mail, gives me a glance when he spots the letter, but doesn’t open it. All through dinner—round steak and beets that I cannot eat—I long for him to ask me his usual string of tired questions: How is piano coming along, Iris? I don’t take piano anymore. How are your marks in ancient history? That was last quarter. But he just chews, dabs his whiskers with the napkin, and reads the classified ads neatly folded by his plate.

It’s maddening. But tonight, if he’d only ask, I’d answer his questions ten times in detail. I’d act interested in anything—used cars, the latest reverse-leather boot styles, profit projections, even his gaudy girlfriend, Celeste.

When the dishes are done, while I pretend to do my Latin homework, he sits at his desk studying the shoe section of a Sears and Roebuck catalog, complaining about “cheap mail-order shoes that don’t hold up to the elements.” Finally he slices the envelope with his brass knife. I cross my arms and wait. He reads the letter twice, moving his head ever so slightly back and forth as the news pulls him along. Daddy clears his throat and rubs his whiskers, his face flushed. He slides the medical report in his drawer, drums his fingers. “I’m going by Celeste’s,” he remarks without looking up. “I’ll be later than usual.” He scrapes his chair back and walks out.

The engine revs. The car door slams.

I burst into tears on the porch swing, my heart a knot.

“Meet me, Leroy, please,” I whisper into the phone minutes later. “Our spot.”

And he does.

A breeze lifts wisps of his messy red hair. He picks chips of dusty green paint off the picnic table we always sit on while I spill my story. “He just left to tell Celeste… first.” I bury my face.

“Who’s she?”

“You know… his latest lady friend.”

Leroy leans back on his elbows, studies the dusky sky. “You’re saying he just rushed out the door to tell his girlfriend that he is going to die?”

“Yes.”

“Uh… Iris?” Leroy bumps my arm. “How do you know it’s a medical report? Did you read it? I mean, you’ve already turned him into a memory!”

My insides feel wild. We sit silent a miserably long time. “You’ve got this all blown up. It could be something else.” He puts his handkerchief in my hand, swallows hard. “This death stuff you always dream up… you’re kinda morbid.”

The word settles over me. Something shifts inside. I swipe my cheeks. “Did I hear you call me...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1416997040
• ISBN 13: 9781416997047
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 272
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande