A Wrinkle in Time Quintet Read Online Free PDF

woods Fortinbras stood in front of a boy, barking furiously.
    As they came panting up the boy said, “For crying out loud, call off your dog.”
    “Who is he?” Charles Wallace asked Meg.
    “Calvin O’Keefe. He’s in Regional, but he’s older than I am. He’s a big bug.”
    “It’s all right, fella. I’m not going tohurt you,” the boy said to Fortinbras.
    “Sit, Fort,” Charles Wallace commanded, and Fortinbras dropped to his haunches in front of the boy, a low growl still pulsing in his dark throat.
    “Okay.” Charles Wallace put his hands on his hips. “Now tell us what you’re doing here.”
    “I might ask the same of you,” the boy said with some indignation. “Aren’t you two of the Murry kids? This isn’t your property,is it?” He started to move, but Fortinbras’s growl grew louder and he stopped.
    “Tell me about him, Meg,” Charles Wallace demanded.
    “What would I know about him?” Meg asked. “He’s a couple of grades above me, and he’s on the basketball team.”
    “Just because I’m tall.” Calvin sounded a little embarrassed. Tall he certainly was, and skinny. His bony wrists stuck out of the sleeves of his blue sweater;his worn corduroy trousers were three inches too short. He had orange hair that needed cutting and the appropriate freckles to go with it. His eyes were an oddly bright blue.
    “Tell us what you’re doing here,” Charles Wallace said.
    “What
is
this? The third degree? Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be the moron?”
    Meg flushed with rage, but Charles Wallace answered placidly, “That’s right.If you want me to call my dog off you’d better give.”
    “Most peculiar moron I’ve ever met,” Calvin said. “I just came to get away from my family.”
    Charles Wallace nodded. “What kind of family?”
    “They all have runny noses. I’m third from the top of eleven kids. I’m a sport.”
    At that Charles Wallace grinned widely. “So ’m I.”
    “I don’t mean like in baseball,” Calvin said.
    “Neither do I.”
    “Imean like in biology,” Calvin said suspiciously.
    “A change in gene,”
Charles Wallace quoted, “
resulting in the appearance in the offspring of a character which is not present in the parents but which is potentially transmissible to its offspring
.”
    “What gives around here?” Calvin asked. “I was told you couldn’t talk.”
    “Thinking I’m a moron gives people something to feel smug about,” CharlesWallace said. “Why should I disillusion them? How old are you, Cal?”
    “Fourteen.”
    “What grade?”
    “Junior. Eleventh. I’m bright. Listen, did anybody ask you to come here this afternoon?”
    Charles Wallace, holding Fort by the collar, looked at Calvin suspiciously. “What do you mean,
asked?
”
    Calvin shrugged. “You still don’t trust me, do you?”
    “I don’t
dis
trust you,” Charles Wallace said.
    “Doyou want to tell me why you’re here, then?”
    “Fort and Meg and I decided to go for a walk. We often do in the afternoon.”
    Calvin dug his hands down in his pockets. “You’re holding out on me.”
    “So ’re you,” Charles Wallace said.
    “Okay, old sport,” Calvin said, “I’ll tell you this much. Sometimes I get a feeling about things. You might call it a compulsion. Do you know what compulsion means?”
    “
Constraint. Obligation. Because one is compelled
. Not a very good definition, but it’s the Concise Oxford.”
    “Okay, okay,” Calvin sighed. “I must remember I’m preconditioned in my concept of your mentality.”
    Meg sat down on the coarse grass at the edge of the woods. Fort gently twisted his collar out of Charles Wallace’s hands and came over to Meg, lying down beside her and putting his head inher lap.
    Calvin tried now politely to direct his words toward Meg as well as Charles Wallace, “When I get this feeling, this compulsion, I always do what it tells me. I can’t explain where it comes from or how I get it, and it doesn’t happen very