A Wrinkle in Time Quintet Read Online Free PDF Page A

thoughtfully as she went to the refrigerator and gave the kitten some milk, then drank a mugful herself.
    He handedher a paper bag. “Here’s a sandwich and some cookies and an apple. I thought we’d better go see Mrs Whatsit.”
    “Oh, golly,” Meg said. “
Why
, Charles?”
    “You’re still uneasy about her, aren’t you?” Charles asked.
    “Well, yes.”
    “Don’t be. She’s all right. I promise you. She’s on our side.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Meg,”
he said impatiently. “I
know
.”
    “But why should we go see her now?”
    “I want tofind out more about that tesseract thing. Didn’t you see how it upset Mother? You know when Mother can’t control the way she feels, when she lets us see she’s upset, then it’s something big.”
    Meg thought for a moment. “Okay, let’s go. But let’s take Fortinbras with us.”
    “Well, of course. He needs the exercise.”
    They set off, Fortinbras rushing ahead, then doubling back to the two children,then leaping off again. The Murrys lived about four miles out of the village. Behind thehouse was a pine woods and it was through this that Charles Wallace took Meg.
    “Charles, you know she’s going to get in awful trouble—Mrs Whatsit, I mean—if they find out she’s broken into the haunted house. And taking Mrs. Buncombe’s sheets and everything. They could send her to jail.”
    “One of the reasonsI want to go over this afternoon is to warn them.”
    “Them?”
    “I told you she was there with her two friends. I’m not even sure it was Mrs Whatsit herself who took the sheets, though I wouldn’t put it past her.”
    “But what would she want all those sheets for?”
    “I intend to ask her,” Charles Wallace said, “and to tell them they’d better be more careful. I don’t really think they’ll let anybodyfind them, but I just thought we ought to mention the possibility. Sometimes during vacations some of the boys go out there looking for thrills, but I don’t think anybody’s apt to right now, what with basketball and everything.”
    They walked in silence for a moment through the fragrant woods, the rusty pine needles gentle under their feet. Up above them the wind made music in the branches. CharlesWallace slipped his hand confidingly in Meg’s, and the sweet, little-boy gesture warmed her so that she felt the tense knot inside her begin to loosen.
Charles
loves me at any rate, she thought.
    “School awful again today?” he asked after a while.
    “Yes. I got sent to Mr. Jenkins. He made snide remarks about Father.”
    Charles Wallace nodded sagely. “I know.”
    “
How
do you know?”
    Charles Wallaceshook his head. “I can’t quite explain. You tell me, that’s all.”
    “But I never say anything. You just seem to know.”
    “Everything about you tells me,” Charles said.
    “How about the twins?” Meg asked. “Do you know about them, too?”
    “I suppose I could if I wanted to. If they needed me. But it’s sort of tiring, so I just concentrate on you and Mother.”
    “You mean you read our minds?”
    Charles Wallacelooked troubled. “I don’t think it’s that. It’s being able to understand a sort of language, like sometimes if I concentrate very hard I can understand the wind talking with the trees. You tell me, you see, sort of inad—inadvertently. That’s a good word, isn’t it? I got Mother to look it up in the dictionary for me this morning. I really must learn to read, except I’m afraid it will make itawfully hard for me in school next year if I already know things. I think it will be better if people go on thinking I’m not very bright. They won’t hate me quite so much.”
    Ahead of them Fortinbras started barking loudly, the warning bay that usually told them that a car was coming up the road or that someone was at the door.
    “Somebody’s here,” Charles Wallace said sharply. “Somebody’s hangingaround the house. Come
on
.” He started to run, his short legs straining. At the edge of the