Over The Sea Read Online Free PDF Page A

I waited around, sick with apprehension, wondering if I was going to get the belt for writing in a code. I knew what they’d say if I dared to bring it up: Why are you keeping secrets? Only kids who have guilty consciences keep secrets. Everyone else is happy to have anyone look at their things .
    How could I express that safety had come, in a very few visits, to mean Mearsies Heili, and not home? I dreaded coming home. In fact I hated the word home because so often it meant fear, and sudden pain.
o0o
    Three more visits. They were much too short. As soon as I got there Clair gave me the medallion to wear, and then I heard the language whose sound I already loved. When I had to go back I’d try to remember the words I’d spoken while under the spell of the medallion, but I couldn’t. I could only remember sounds, the ‘r’s that trill, the clear vowels, some of them double.
    On the fourth visit, waiting with Sherry were two new girls, Irene and Seshe. In case for some weird reason my records are ever translated, that first one sounds like Ear-enneh. The last ‘eh’ being really short. Some other people said it like Ay-reeneh, but she didn’t. Seshe was short for Seshemerria. Her name was pronounced “ Seh -she.”
    Irene was maybe a year or so older than I was, tallish, with a long ponytail of brown hair. Seshe was also tall — in fact, she was both the tallest and the oldest of the girls. Her hair was also the longest, a straight blond-streaked light brown fall to the backs of her knees. She bound it in locks so it wouldn’t tangle.
    Clare and I appeared in the forest, just like the previous three visits. The sun was warm, the weather clear. And there were the three girls, giving me a feeling that my visit had been planned for by them all.
    As soon as they were introduced, Irene turned to me, put her hands on her hips, and said, “I love acting out stories. I hope you do too. It’s my favorite game!” She talked just like that, with all those emphasized words.
    â€œSure,” I said, struggling to keep my face bland and polite. Inside, I boiled with instant jealousy because Irene stood there in a pretty dress with lace at the neck and sleeves, and ribbons lacing the front together. It was blue and pale pink and cream, all in loops and swoops, and I agonized, wishing I could ever have something that pretty.
    Irene flipped her ponytail back. “So what story shall we do?”
    Seshe turned Clair’s way. “Do you want to play?” Her voice was calm, as calm as her face.
    Clair gave her head a shake. “I’d rather watch.”
    Seshe nodded. “Then we need a story for four.”
    Irene sighed, staring intently up at the trees, as though someone was going to strangle her if she didn’t think up something at once. I watched, fighting against the instinct that worked so quick in me to turn envy to dislike. I did not want to dislike anything in Mearsies Heili, or anyone who Clair liked. But it was obvious that Irene didn’t have to worry about being thought too wild, or too show-offy, or too anything.
    â€œShall we play — ” Sherry began.
    She never finished her suggestion, for we all heard noises: a kind of thumping, and then, faintly, a braying laugh that echoed through the trees.
    Clair went very still.
    Irene whirled around, drawing in a breath. “It’s them ,” she whispered. “Has to be!”
    â€œLet’s see,” Seshe suggested in a low voice. “Seems to be coming from the north road.”
    Clair looked my way, her expression not quite worry, more like question. “Do you mind? Or would you rather not?”
    â€œI want to see, if it’s okay,” I said, very tentative. I did not want to say the wrong thing.
    She seemed relieved. Seshe led the way through the trees to what had once been a road, but had been let grow over. We stopped on a gentle rise just above it, in a place