The Crying Rocks - Softcover

Lisle, Janet Taylor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1442474866 ISBN 13: 9781442474864

Verlag: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

About Joelle's life before she was found -- brought in from the railway depot, a scrawny five-year-old child -- there isn't a lot known for sure.

"And don't ask me! I can't remember anything," she snaps at anyone who pries, including the weird kid named Carlos who sits in the back row in Spanish class. But when Carlos, collector of arrowheads and Native American lore, tells her she looks like a girl in an old painting of Rhode Island's Narragansett Indians, Joelle can't help sneaking a look. She's surprised by a flicker of recognition.

It's Carlos who leads her through the forest to the ancient Crying Rocks, where howls on windy days are thought to be the spirit voices of children long ago, flung from the boulders to early death. The terrible story draws Joelle into the downdraft of her own memory, to a window, a shadowy mother, a freight train escape from Chicago. It also leads her toward the history of a lost American people, and the discovery of a rare kind of courage that runs deep in her family.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Janet Taylor Lisle’s books for young readers have received the Newbery Honor Award (Afternoon of the Elves), the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction (The Art of Keeping Cool), Holland’s Zilveren Griffel, and Italy’s Premio Andersen Award, among other honors. A graduate of Smith College and former journalist, Janet lives in Rhode Island and often draws on Rhode Island history in her work. Visit her online at JanetTaylorLisle.com.

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Chapter 1

Every morning before Joelle comes out of the house to go to school, there is little Misti Martin waiting for her on the sidewalk. She stands behind the low prickly hedge, dangling her lunch box in one hand and staring with worshipful eyes at Joelle's front door, whose paint is peeling off and screen is ripped.

"That China girl is out there again," Aunt Mary Louise calls, catching sight of her figure from the upstairs window. "What's she want with you, anyway, a little kid like that?"

"Nothing," Joelle yells back, "and don't bother to come down. I'm making my own breakfast."

Aunt Mary Louise hasn't been feeling up to par since summer. First it was her back. Now her legs are giving her trouble. She used to get up at 6:00 A.M. to fix Vernon something to eat before he left for work at the turkey ranch. Lately, she's not even making it downstairs before Joelle has to leave.

The moment Joelle appears at the door, Misti's mouth drops open an inch or so. Her fine-rimmed eyes widen, as if she's seen something marvelous. Joelle strides across the beat-up lawn on her long legs and pushes through the prickly hedge, now bristling with the red berries of fall.

"How's it going, Misti?"

"Okay," she says.

"So what's for lunch today?" Joelle asks, looking down at the lunch box.

"A bologna sandwich without mustard, and a boiled egg," Misti barely breathes, collapsed with shyness.

"Well, that's a surprise," Joelle says, trying to keep things light. "That is truly a big surprise."

Misti nods. She eats the same thing for lunch every day. Seven days a week, four weeks a month, twelve months a year, a bologna sandwich without mustard, and a boiled egg. Joelle could say something mean about this if she wanted, but she holds back. Misti is too little to rag on.

"Do you have art today?" she asks instead, stooping over to speak as they begin to walk along. Misti, who is eight, is very small for her age, while Joelle, at thirteen, has grown unusually tall, five feet nine inches at last measurement and still going. There must have been a church steeple somewhere back in her family tree, Aunt Mary Louise often jokes.

"No art today," Misti answers, just above a whisper. She has coal black hair like Joelle, but shiny and sleek instead of thick. As best she can, she's wearing it the same way Joelle's wearing hers, pinned back with barrettes behind the ears.

"Oh yeah, I forgot. Only on Fridays, right? That's terrible, art just once a week. They should have it more. Especially for people like us, who really love it."

"You like it too?" Misti dares to ask. She's not really Chinese, but Japanese. Or rather, half Japanese. Aunt Mary Louise knows this, she just doesn't always remember to make the distinction. Misti's mother came from Japan when she was a child herself, and later met and married her father, who is an American. Misti was born and has lived her whole life so far just down the street.

"I used to," Joelle says, "when I was your age. I remember we made necklaces out of beer tabs one time. And another time we carved pendants out of wood. You know what a pendant is, right? It's like a charm you wear around your neck? I've still got mine somewhere. Do they let you do jewelry?"

Misti doesn't answer. She peeks up at Joelle, then glances away fast, as if she's walking with the sun or, anyway, with something too bright to look at for very long.

"Are you really a lost royal princess?" she blurts out suddenly. "Penny Perrino said you are but you don't want to tell people."

Joelle comes to a stop and looks down. "A what?" she explodes. "A lost what?"

Misti jumps.

"Listen, don't ask me that stuff," Joelle yells at her. "I don't want to hear that stuff anymore, okay?"

Misti's mouth quivers and she stares at the ground.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell." Joelle puts her arm around Misti's narrow shoulders. They start walking again. "I'm just tired of questions like that, all right? I don't even want to think about questions like that."

Misti nods sadly. Soon her sunstruck face is glancing up, though. Both of them know that tomorrow morning she'll be standing outside Joelle's house, waiting to walk with her again.

As everyone in school and many people in the small town of Marshfield, Rhode Island, are aware, Joelle is adopted. Aunt Mary Louise was open about it right from the beginning, though she needn't have said a word and anyone could have guessed. Joelle has never looked the least thing like her, or like Vernon, her adoptive father, for that matter. Where they are sandy-colored, Joelle is dark. Where they are heavy and earthbound, she is agile and quick. Joelle carries herself with a brisk aloofness that bears no resemblance to her aunt's hearty manner. Perhaps it's these differences that have inspired people to speculate about Joelle's background over the years. She's sick of it. This new rumor of royal blood is particularly crazy. Misti's friend, Penny, probably picked up a strand of gossip at school this fall. Now, in the girls' minds, and also in the minds of a number of their friends, Joelle has become something exotic and fascinating.

On her way home from school Joelle often sees this group of girls huddled across the street in front of their elementary school, watching for her. They're the walkers, the ones who live close enough so their parents don't worry about them coming and going by themselves. They're there when she walks by this afternoon, whispering frantically behind their hands.

She told me she doesn't like to talk about being a princess, Joelle imagines Misti saying. Which must mean she is one!

Misti must have passed along some story since this morning because everyone falls silent and follows Joelle with knowing eyes as she goes by. Joelle doesn't speak to them. She holds her head up and strides on. It's become embarrassing, this pack of little girls always on her tail. She stands out enough as it is, and not in a way that's any good to stand out.

In her own class Joelle isn't popular. There her height is a sign of weirdness. The boys are all shorter. Besides, people notice her skin. It's a dusty auburn color unlike anyone else's. The black kids know she's not one of them. She doesn't look Hispanic or Asian, either.

"Where do you think you're from?" someone asked her just the other day, the girl named Melinda, who wears black eyeliner and high-heeled boots to class.

"Where do you think you're from, Playboy magazine?" Joelle had fired back, loudly, so everyone would hear.

She has a talent for saying the perfect terrible thing to stop people in their tracks. To keep them away. The "in" girls avoid her like the plague. Even the older boys are wary, ever since she told Buddy Guinn, the football captain, his fly was open and he actually looked down.

"Get lost, okay?" Joelle shouts over her shoulder to Misti and her troop, who are sneaking along in her wake. She flashes around the corner and heads down the first of three long blocks toward home. There on the sidewalk ahead of her is the kid Carlos, who's in her Spanish class. You'd think with a name like Carlos he could already speak Spanish, but he can't. He's at square one, the buenos días-muchas gracias level, with her.

Just as she's about to catch up and pass him, he leans way over and grabs something off the ground. Then he crouches down to look at it in his hand.

Joelle doesn't especially want to talk to him, but there he is, blocking her path, so she says, "Excuse me!" in a sarcastic voice.

The kid leaps a mile and spins around. "Sorry! I didn't think anyone was behind me."

"Well, they were," Joelle says, stepping out to go around him. She tries to see what's in his hand, but he...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1442474866
• ISBN 13: 9781442474864
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar