Everybody's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

you go outside.”
    “Gee, Mom, do I have one? You mean you haven’t given them all to some needy beggar?”
    “I could use your help now,” Mrs. Flynn said, ignoring her daughter’s comment.
    “With all these people, you need me?”
    “With all these people, I especially need you.”
    Beamer smiled. Her mother seldom exhibited impatience with the people she loved. This was nice. “Tell them to go home.”
    “That’s the problem. They think that’s where they are.”
    During the morning the shop was beset with phone calls, usually from friends who knew of Sandra’s connection to the commune and were calling to hear the latest news. By afternoon, however, the newspaper and television reporters had discovered the connection and begun their siege. The bombing was big news, and the commune in Sandra’s background gave the story flavor. With the appearance of the first reporter at the store, the Woodies called a quick conference to discuss a unified response. Beamer’s mother was chosen as spokesperson for the group, and many reporters—Beamer counted seven at one point—spent a futile afternoon trying to get the others, especially Daryl and Sandra’s daughters, to talk. “Keep those girls away from the reporters,” said Beamer’s mother. “Don’t let anyone with a tape recorder or a notepad come near them.”
    So Beamer and Johnny guarded their charges carefully. After a late-afternoon snack eaten beside a bonfire, the four were resting against a huge snow dune next to the lake when they spotted an unfamiliar woman walking unsteadily through the snow toward them.
    “Look at that, Beamo,” said Johnny. “All this deep snow and she’s got shiny high-heeled boots on.” Beamer and the others lay on their stomachs on top of the dune and watched the woman approach.
    “I like the down vest,” said Beamer. “Fur-trimmed. I hope there aren’t any hunters out today.” She stood. “What do you want?” she called to the woman.
    The woman halted. “Rae Ramone, St. Paul Pioneer Press. The children—I really would like to see the children. You have them, don’t you?”
    “Please go,” Beamer shouted. “Get ready,” she whispered to Johnny. He told the little girls to stay down and handed them each a candy bar. They settled back into the snow and munched happily. Johnny started making snowballs.
    “I won’t be a bother,” said Rae Ramone. “I won’t frighten them. Just for a moment, please.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Then you, how about you? You’re Merry Moonbeam, aren’t you? That’s a marvelous name. You must have a lot to say.” The woman began walking toward them again. Johnny stood next to Beamer and handed her his stocking cap full of snowballs.
    “Please stop,” Beamer called.
    “This won’t take but a minute,” said Rae Ramone. “And I promise you—”
    The barrage of snowballs began, each one on target. Rae Ramone teetered on her high heels and somehow managed not to fall. When one of Johnny’s shots knocked off her beret she started swearing, a string of crude epithets that Beamer seldom heard, even from the men who frequented the bait shop and fish houses.
    “Listen to that,” Beamer said loudly. “That woman shouldn’t be allowed near children. What a mouth!” Rae Ramone swore again, but kept walking toward them. Beamer smoothed the snowball in her hand until it was hard and icy, then she let it fly. It smacked the reporter’s chest and knocked her over. A heel snapped off her boot as she fell. Beamer sighed. “A little violence now and then does us all good,” she muttered to Johnny. “Let’s go back to the house,” she said to the girls, and they walked silently and quickly past the fallen Rae Ramone.
    Beamer tucked the girls into bed that night and marveled at how quickly they fell asleep. They have absolutely no idea what’s happening, she thought as she watched them shift and turn until they settled into a deep, still sleep. The girls had been told almost