The Other Side of the Island Read Online Free PDF

children will burn.”
    “And the next one.” Mrs. Whyte handed Honor another card.
    Honor took a breath. “Atmosphere is falling down, falling down, falling down . . .”
    “I believe this is a song,” Mrs. Whyte reminded her.
    “Atmosphere is falling down. My fair lady,” Honor sang haltingly.
    Then her classmates could not cover their giggles any longer. Their laughter rang through the classroom.
    “Take the sky and close it up, close it up, close it up. Take the sky and close it up. My fair lady,” sang Honor. The other girls put their heads down on their desks and laughed until they cried.
    Mrs. Whyte let them laugh. She did not say a word, but let the laughter come until Honor’s cheeks burned.

    At recess Honor wandered alone. The whole Lower School had recess together on the Lower Playground while the teachers sat and talked at picnic tables in the shade. Honor’s classmates gossiped, whispering to each other as they walked in pairs. She stayed as far away from them as possible.
    She stood by the playground fence and stared at the orderlies pruning bushes on the other side. The orderlies wore white jumpsuits and hats on their bald heads. They looked neither happy nor sad, because they had no eyebrows.
    “Hello,” she said through the fence. The orderlies didn’t even glance at her.
    “My name is Honor,” she said, and then asked the nearer orderly, “What’s your name?”
    Out of nowhere, Mrs. Whyte was upon her, taking her by the hand and hurrying her away. “Too close. Too close!”
    “Why?” Honor asked.
    Mrs. Whyte was fuming, muttering, “Ten years old and speaking to the . . . Haven’t your parents told you never to talk to orderlies?”
    Honor shook her head. “We didn’t have orderlies where we lived.”
    “It’s as if you’ve been raised by wolves,” exclaimed Mrs. Whyte.
    “I just wanted to know their names,” said Honor.
    Mrs. Whyte turned on her. “They don’t have names. Run along. Find an activity.”
    Honor stood at the edge of the field and watched the boys running and kicking an orange ball. Her parents had never told her to stay away from orderlies, only not to stare.
    She wandered over to a dusty place under the trees. Two girls swung a rope and the rest took turns jumping in. The first chanted as she jumped:
    “A my name is Alice, and I am an engineer. My husband’s name is Abner, and we bring back aluminum.”
    Then she jumped out and the next girl jumped in, chanting:
    “B my name is Brodie, and I am an engineer. My husband’s name is Berthold, and we bring back beryllium.”
    They kept going as far as they could through the alphabet. Honor didn’t ask to play. If you forgot an element, the game had to start all over again and the girls got annoyed.
    She walked to the empty sandbox. The girls never went there. They were all afraid of sand because they thought it came from the shore. Honor had seen her classmates shudder as they walked past, especially if some sand had drifted onto the grass. “Ooh, don’t go near the sand. It’s filthy! It’s got bugs! It’s got fleas! You’ll get sand in your pants!”
    Honor sat on the wooden edge of the sandbox. She began to trail her fingers in the smooth white sand. She scooped the sand up in her hands and let it fall away again.
    “There’s no bottom,” said a boy standing at the edge. It was Helix Thompson, a kid with long blond hair that always fell in his eyes. His eyes were either dark brown or black. His hair was always falling over his face, so it was hard to tell. Helix stepped into the sandbox. He dangled a magnet from a string over the surface of the sand. “This is a metal detector,” Helix said.
    “What are you detecting?” Honor asked wearily.
    “Anything with iron. Screws, nails, ancient tools,” said Helix. “I scan the surface with my magnet. Then I sift the sand through my fingers.”
    “Let me see.”
    They bent over the magnet together. “If you had a magnet like this, you could make a