The Aviary Read Online Free PDF Page A

enough. Clara was reaching for the stone with the note in her pocket when she heard footsteps on the stairs. She quickly gathered up the crumbs of dirt and chipped paint that littered the sill and threw them down into the yard, then lightly closed the window without securing the latch.
    Her mother was at Clara’s door by the time she got downstairs. She was carrying a pitcher of warmed water. “Up with the sun, I see,” she said.
    “Yes, I am,” Clara said, hiding her dirty hands in her pockets.
    “Good,” she said, pouring the water into Clara’s bedside basin. “I could use some extra help this morning. I’d like you to wash up quickly and make tea and toast for Mrs. Glendoveer while I go check on her, please.”
    “Of course!” Clara said brightly. She washed, dressed, rebraided her hair, and headed for the kitchen. As she set the kettle on the stove and put the bread in tongs to toast it, Clara’s heart pounded with the thought of the stone in her apron pocket, the note wrapped around it.
    “I’m not doing a bad thing, exactly,” she told herself. “I’m only letting Daphne know that I can’t see her. If you look at it a certain way, I’m really doing what Mama wants.” But inside, she heard another voice making plans. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to wave to Daphne each morning? What if, after a while, her mother saw that the friendship was harmless and allowed the girls to exchange letters, like pen friends?
    Filled with anticipation, Clara readied the tray and went along, humming, to Mrs. Glendoveer’s room.
    “Please, Clara, help!” her mother said. She was leaning Mrs. Glendoveer forward over doubled pillows as she slapped her pink, bare back.
    “What’s happened?”
    “Her lungs are congested. We need to help her cough it up. Please get her handkerchief and her bed jacket.”
    Clara set down the tea tray and got her mother a hankie.
    “Cough, Mrs. Glendoveer,” she said. “Don’t be shy.”
    She did, and the ragged wheeze that followed disquieted Clara.
    “Again, dear,” said Harriet, wiping Mrs. Glendoveer’s mouth.
    “It’s painful,” rasped Mrs. Glendoveer. “Here in my back.”
    “And it doesn’t help, me beating on you,” Clara’s mother said sympathetically. “I promise you, we’re nearly done.”
    Clara almost couldn’t bear to watch. The sharp bones of the old woman’s spine seemed ready to break through the skin. And her lovely white hair was damp and stringy, showing her naked scalp.
    After Mrs. Glendoveer coughed into the hankie one last time, Harriet motioned for Clara to bring the bed jacket. She clothed Mrs. Glendoveer and laid her back gently, propping her upright with pillows.
    “I’m going to call Dr. Post,” she said.
    Shivering, Mrs. Glendoveer waved her hand as if she wanted no part of it.
    “Please, Mrs. Glendoveer,” Clara said.
    “There’s nothing he can do for me that you girls can’t,” she said.
    Harriet put her hands on her hips. “I will give you thismorning,” she said. “If your temperature rises or your pain worsens, I
will
call him.”
    The patient fell back into the pillows without another word.
    “I am going to brush your hair, Mrs. Glendoveer,” Clara said, “and put a cool cloth on you.”
    “Would you?” asked her mother.
    “Whatever Mrs. Glendoveer wants,” Clara said. “Then I’ll leave her in your hands for now. But I’ll be back.”
    Clara took the pearl-backed brush and some hairpins from the vanity, but when she approached the bed, Mrs. Glendoveer laid her hand on Clara’s arm.
    “Clara Dooley,” she said, “I would like to speak to you.”
    There was nothing playful about Mrs. Glendoveer’s demeanor, and Clara listened carefully.
    “Shall I tell you something about what it’s like turning twelve years old?”
    “That’s not until July.”
    “Doesn’t matter. You may think I don’t remember. But I do. I don’t know what your mother has said to you, but—” Mrs. Glendoveer held up a hand. She