The Queen of the Big Time Read Online Free PDF

outside. I stop her.
    “Don’t say I said anything,” I whisper.
    “Don’t worry.”
    Two ladies come out of the pantry carrying Mama’s rhubarb pies, and as much as I love it, I won’t go outside to get a slice. I’m afraid if I look at the blue-eyed boy again I might cry. I have never been overwhelmed by a boy. This must be what love at first sight feels like. If it is, it’s awful. I feel sick and nervous and sad. I’ve met the boy I want and I cannot have him. He’s too old and would never wait for me. He would have to wait four years at least, until I’m eighteen. Four years. It might as well be a hundred.
    I’ve had little crushes, but for the most part, the boys at Delabole School are silly. They hardly study and have no interest in books and learning; they only go because their parents make them go.
    I wonder how Elena will approach him. I don’t want to know everything about him, just a few things: his name, where he lives, and exactly how old he is. I wish I would have asked him what his favorite book is, because you can tell a lot about someone by the books he reads. As soon as I get my courage up, and the flush of my cheeks diesdown, maybe I’ll go back outside and talk to him again. I will forget for a moment that Papa would think I was too young for him, and play the part of a lady. In fact, I will pretend I am Miss Stoddard, and that I have an education. I wonder if he thinks I’m pretty. He must, he said I was bella . I take the moppeen and go into the pantry. I wipe off my face and sit on Mama’s step stool and wait. It seems like hours before I hear the screen door slam.
    “Nella?” Elena calls out.
    “In here,” I whisper.
    “There’s no need to hide.” She comes into the pantry and sits on a step stool. “Here’s what I found out. His name is Renato Lanzara.”
    “What a beautiful name.”
    “Isn’t it? He is twenty-one years old.”
    “Twenty-one!” My heart sinks in my chest. He might as well be forty, he’s too old for me.
    “And you’ll love this: he lives in town. His father is the barber.”
    “Why haven’t I ever seen him before?” I wonder aloud.
    “Nella, he’s seven years older than you. That’s a lot.”
    I don’t want to go outside anymore, and I’ve lost my nerve for talking to him. I don’t even care about sitting around hearing the grownups tell stories of Italy or the sweet slice of rhubarb I’m missing. I just want to go up to my room and be alone.
    “He had to go.” Elena breaks the news gently, but I am so disappointed I can’t speak. “But he said to tell you that he enjoyed meeting you.”
    “He did?” I am amazed.
    “And then he said to tell you something only you would understand.”
    “What was it?”
    “He said, ‘Tell Nella not to forget the rhyme.’ ” Elena fixes the bow in my hair. “What rhyme?”
    “It was nothing,” I tell her. As much as I love Elena, this is one secret I’d like to keep to myself. “Nella rhymes with bella,” he’d said. Hethinks I’m beautiful! He sent me a message. A message just for me! With this news, my ambition returns and races through me like a fever. I don’t want to sit in this pantry another moment. Not only will I stay up late and listen to stories and eat pie, I will wash every dish and pot and pan after our guests leave. I don’t ever want to go to sleep, I want to stay awake and think of Renato Lanzara, the handsome boy from town with the exquisite name.



CHAPTER TWO
    I follow Assunta on Delabole Road, a few paces behind her. She carries a small lantern as we make the turn onto the main road to town. The sun is not yet up. It is strange to start my first day of school in the dark, as I used to be able to run down the lane to Delabole School five minutes before Miss Stoddard rang the bell and be on time. In the distance, the hills of jagged gray slate slag look forbidding as the sun makes a ribbon of light over the mountains far away. “Hurry up,” Assunta says