Peter and Veronica Read Online Free PDF Page A

head. “No, I don’t think I’d like to go. But you go ahead with them.” He began reading again.
    Peter thought for a moment and then went off to find his skates.
    “Where are you going, Peter?” his mother called as he passed the kitchen on his way out.
    “Skating.”
    “I told her already you couldn’t go.”
    “Told who?”
    “That girl.”
    Peter came into the kitchen. “Was Veronica here this morning? Why didn’t you tell me?”
    His mother ran water in the sink. “You didn’t ask.”
    “Ma,” Peter cried, “why didn’t you tell her where I was?”
    “I didn’t know where you were.”
    “But I told you I was going to Marv’s house.”
    “I forgot.”
    “Mama,” Peter said angrily, “what have you got against her? What did she ever do to you?”
    He dropped his skates on the floor, and his father looked up, startled, from his book.
    “Now you’re disturbing your father. Why don’t you go and play with Marvin?”
    “Now you want me to play with Marvin, but you used to say I shouldn’t play with Marvin because he was stupid. How come you changed your mind all of a sudden? How come now you want me to play with Marvin?”
    “Because,” said his mother, turning off the water and facing him angrily, “Marvin may not be the smartest boy in the world, but he’s still a nice boy— a big difference between Marvin and that crazy, wild, fresh girl you’ve been hanging around with all of a sudden. And let me ask you a question: what do you have in common with such a girl, a boy like you, a smart, well-brought-up, Jewish boy with a ... a ..."
    “That’s it, isn’t it?” Peter yelled triumphantly. “It’s because she’s not Jewish, isn’t it? Mama, you’re prejudiced, that’s what you are.”
    Peter’s father closed his book and sighed.
    “Prejudiced! I’m prejudiced!” shouted Mrs. Wedemeyer. “That I should live to see the day that my own son stands there to my face and calls me prejudiced! And for what? For an ignorant, stupid, ugly stranger.”
    “She’s not stupid and she’s not ignorant and she’s my friend. You wouldn’t care if she was the most beautiful genius in the whole world. It’s just that she’s not Jewish. Well, she’s my friend and I like her and I don’t care what she is.”
    His father began chuckling. “Thine own friend, forsake not,” he quoted in Yiddish. Peter’s father always seemed to have a proverb handy, culled from all the years poring over his religious books. “You’re making a fuss over nothing, Jennie. Leave the boy alone. He’s old enough now to pick his own friends. Don’t ask for trouble.”
    There was a moment of silence. Mr. Wedemeyer opened his book again, and Peter picked up his skates. Then his mother exploded.
    “Some father you are!” she shouted at her husband. “You sit there all the time with your nose in a book and you don’t take any interest in him. Why don’t you go places with him, like right now. Take him out to see ... to see that boat.”
    “I don’t care for boats,” Mr. Wedemeyer said pleasantly.
    “You don’t care where he goes or who he plays with. You don’t know the kind of girl this is. She’s a juvenile delinquent, that’s what she is. I found out. I asked around in the neighborhood. He thinks I don’t know what she is, but I look out for him. But you, all you’re interested in is sitting there reading the same books over and over again.
    Mr. Wedemeyer rose, picked up his book, and, speaking in Yiddish, said with dignity:
     
    “It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop Than in a house in common with a contentious woman.”
     
    As he left the room, Mrs. Wedemeyer burst into tears, and Peter grabbed his skates and ran.
     
Chapter 4
     
    “I changed my mind,” Veronica said. “I’m not going in.”
    Peter had his hand on the door, but he turned around and said irritably, “Why not?” What a day this was turning out to be! First that scene with his mother, then Stanley blubbering