The Penderwicks on Gardam Street Read Online Free PDF Page A

was delicious, Rosy.” Jane reached under her bed and pulled out a sticky-looking lump of paper napkin. “I snuck a piece up here for you.”
    “No, I couldn’t.” She shook her head vehemently, releasing one last stray leaf, then lapsed back into silence.
    Now Skye tried. “This is weird about Daddy, isn’t it?”
    “Weird?” snapped Rosalind. “That’s what you think, that Daddy going on dates is
weird
?”
    “You don’t?” Skye backed away from her sister’s ferocity.
    “Oh, it’s much worse than weird. What if he falls in love with one of these dates? We could end up with a…” Rosalind shuddered. She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
    “You mean a stepmother?”
    “A stepmother!” Jane had never considered such a thing.
    “Think of Anna,” said Rosalind.
    Rosalind’s friend Anna had a perfectly fine mother, but her father was forever getting married and divorced, then falling in love and doing it over again. It had happened so many times that Anna no longer bothered to keep track of her stepmothers. She called them all Claudia, after the first one.
    “Good grief,” protested Skye. “Daddy’s nothing like Anna’s father.”
    “I know.” Rosalind managed to look a bit ashamed.
    “Yikes!” said Jane suddenly. “Think of poor Jeffrey and that disgusting Dexter.”
    Jeffrey was the boy the sisters had met that summer on vacation. And Dexter was the man who’d dated and then married Jeffrey’s mother, the dreadful Mrs. Tifton. So disgusting—so truly awful—was Dexter that Jeffrey had chosen to go to boarding school in Boston rather than live with him.
    “What’s gotten into you two?” Skye was outraged, for her father’s honor was being trampled in the mud. “Now you’re comparing Daddy to Mrs. Tifton?”
    Batty had been trying to follow the conversation, but though she adored Jeffrey and loathed Mrs. Tifton as much as her sisters did, she couldn’t understand what either of them had to do with Daddy’s dating. Indeed, she was so tired she couldn’t understand much of anything. She felt like she could fall asleep right there, if only Rosalind would just tell her a story, even a little one. Maybe one about Mommy—that would be nice.
    “Rosalind, please,” she said.
    But Jane was talking again. “Skye’s right. Of course Daddy would never fall in love with anyone as horrible as Dexter, or, you know what I mean, Dexter if he was a woman.”
    “Much less horrible than Dexter can still be horrible,” said Rosalind.
    “Dexter, Schmexter,” said Skye. “I trust Daddy. And by the way, everyone seems to be forgetting that the dating was Mommy’s idea.”
    “I didn’t forget. Mommy was wrong.”
    “Rosalind!” Jane almost shrieked it. Their mother had never been wrong. They all knew that.
    “Well, she was.” Rosalind turned and stared out the window.
    Batty didn’t like any of this. She didn’t like that Rosalind didn’t seem to notice her, and she didn’t like the leaves—messing up Skye’s side of the room!—and she especially didn’t like hearing about Mommy being wrong. All she wanted now was to get back to Hound and her bed, and if Rosalind wasn’t going to go with her, she would have to go by herself. She tugged on her red wagon, but this time the wheel got caught on a pile of books, and when she tugged again, the whole wagon turned over and she couldn’t seem to pick it back up and now there were so many tears that Skye would see and know she was a coward—
    —and finally Rosalind had picked her up and hugged her and was murmuring sweet, loving apologies.
    “I just wanted a story,” sobbed Batty.
    “I know.” Waving good night to Skye and Jane, Rosalind carried Batty back to her bed and tucked her in. Hound opened one eye to check, then, satisfied that Batty was in no danger, rolled over and went back to sleep.
    “My wagon,” said Batty, snuggling in among her stuffed animals.
    “I’ll go get it, and then we’ll have a