Alias Dragonfly Read Online Free PDF Page B

hers.
    “Bad sorts, Miss, that’s what’s out there.” She steered me back though the alley toward the boardinghouse door and into the kitchen.
    “You set right down. I’m making a pineapple upside down cake. Seeing as you is just that, upside down, I’m meaning, maybe you’ll have a bit and you’ll be right-ways.”
    She stretched a quilt with blue crisscrosses and a steamboat wheel embroidered on it over the top of a window glass on the door.
    “Now you won’t be peering out to them sorry sights,” she said.
    “I was just taking it all in.” I said, and told her exactly what I’d seen; the soldiers, the washerwoman, everything.
    “You caught all this in the wink of time you was out?” she said, shelling her peas so fast that a bunch fell to the floor.
    “I remember things,” was all I answered.
    “Umm-hum,” Nellie murmured, a worried look on her face.
    “Do you have any family, Nellie?” I asked, hoping she wasn’t alone here in this hard city.
    She dumped the peas into a heavy pot and hung it over the fire.
    “Just my son, Isaac,” she said, glancing down.
    “Does he work for my aunt, too?”
    With one hand Nellie poured water from a pitcher; with the other she wiped her brow on her bandana. It was the same color and pattern the washerwoman in the alley was wearing.
    “Isaac ain’t in these parts. Got to set the waiter out to boil. Then them ham hocks, see, goes on top.” Nellie kicked up the fire under the pot with a poker.
    I handed her the plate of ham parts.
    “That door, with the heavy latch, where does it go?” I asked, pointing to the small door the back of the kitchen.
    “That goes to the cellar, right, Nellie?”
    “It goes nowhere, nowhere,” she said, her voice raised. “There’s bugs and spirit-devils down there, so stay clear of it.”
    Of course I decided then and there to explore it if I could.
    There was a small, scraping sound outside the alley door. Just then, Nellie doused the lamp that lit our small corner of the dark kitchen.
    “Get on with you now, Miss,” she said, getting all firm again, taking my arm and steering me from the room.
    “Is something wrong, Nellie?” Her complete change of mood and her sudden dousing of the lamp shocked me.
    “Miss Madeline, leave me now! Git!” Nellie picked up a rolling pin, and moved toward the door. She brandished the wooden roller like it was a weapon.
    It was the letter from my father the next day that fixed me in a plan.
Maddie-mine, he said, I’m settling in, and oh, my daughter, I hope you are all right and minding your aunt.
My camp is like an Eden lying in a sprawl of oaks and pines on the grounds of a mansion owned by a Mr. Gales. It is about four miles from where you are now, so I’m hoping to get a pass to see you real soon. I promise.
There are some good fellows here.
I’ve never been in close company with men, and truth, Maddie, I like it fine. But I sure am itching to fight.
Keep me and Mama in your heart. Remember we’re always with you.
Love, and love again,
Papa
    I found a map of the city in my aunt’s parlor and memorized it. I saw just where he was, out on Bladensburg Road, right before the Maryland border, and the street route that took him there. I decided to find him, and join him no matter what.
    How? How would I do it? I felt like a fox caught in a snare, ready to chew its own paw off to be free.
    But when the mysterious man came to stay at the boarding house, the trap that held me opened. A hole just big enough for me to crawl through appeared until finally, I made my escape.

Five
     
    He bowed, removed a wide-brimmed white hat, and seated himself at the table. He was decked out in a white linen suit with a narrow, dark brown tie.
    “I’m Timothy Webster,” he said.
    Aunt Salome rose up slowly like she was a queen—and actually curtsied! How phony and dumb did that look?
    “I’ve just arrived in the city, madam, from the faraway Carolinas.” Mr. Webster spoke with a pronounced Southern