The World Above Read Online Free PDF Page B

or later, there are bound to be some risks involved.”
    He broke free of my hold to take a few steps away. Jack literally thinks best on his feet, preferably when he’s using them to go somewhere.
    “I just wish I could figure out a way to prove who I am—who we are,” he went on. “I don’t want people to think I’m just another usurper.”
    I hesitated a moment. “I’ve been thinking about that too,” I acknowledged.
    Jack spun back around. Before I realized what he intended, he caught me up in his arms, twirling me around.
    “You’ve got a plan, don’t you?” he cried. “I knew it. I knew I could count on you. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
    “No, I don’t have a plan.” I gasped, clinging to his shoulders as air filled my skirts like a bell. “Not a full-fledged one, anyhow. It’s just an idea, Jack. Now put me down.”
    “Full-fledged?”
Jack echoed with a laugh. But at least he set me down. “Who in the World Below says stuff like that?”
    “Clearly,” I said as I did my best to smooth my hair and skirts, “only someone who comes from the World Above. And it was never my intention to let you down. I don’t know why you have to say a thing like that.”
    Jack sobered. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
    “You’re Mama’s favorite,” I told him, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. “We both know it’s true, so don’t bother to deny it. It’s because of the way I feel about the World Below. But I’m just as much a part of this family as you are, Jack. I’d never let you down.”
    I began to stomp my way back to the house.
    “Gen, wait,” Jack said. I heard the quick sound of his feet. “I didn’t mean it like that. You’re making too much of it. How come we’ve spent the whole day fighting? I don’t want us to.”
    “I don’t want us to fight either,” I said. I stopped walking as the extent of the truth of this struck me.
    “Then what
do
you want?”
    “I want you to come home safe,” I said.
    “I want that too,” Jack said. “But what if home turns out to be the World Above?”
    “It doesn’t make a difference,” I said. “I just want you to be safe, that’s all. I don’t want you to end up sacrificed to Guy de Trabant’s ambition like our father was.”
    Or your own ambition, for that matter
, I thought.
    “I’ll be careful. I swear I will,” Jack vowed. “Just say you’ll do one thing for me.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Wish me luck.”
    “Good luck, Jack,” I said. And I meant it with all my heart.
    That was the moment I felt it. I can’t explain how. I felt the magic take root and the beanstalk begin to grow.
    “You know,” Jack said as he slung an arm around my shoulders, “we make a pretty good team, whether you like to admit it or not. You provide the plan; I provide the quick thinking if anything goes wrong.”
    I gave a snort. “Which it almost always does. Could that be because you change the plan the minute it’s made? Wait a minute. Yes, I do believe that could account for it.”
    Jack gave my shoulders a quick, hard squeeze. “Cut it out.”
    “If you’re trying to ask me whether or not I’ve been figuring out a way for you to prove who you really are, the answer is yes,” I said. “It has to do with our family’s coat of arms. . . .”

 

F IVE
     
    Jack and I talked well into the night, whispering with our heads together and our bodies stretched out in opposite directions on the soft braided rug. We’d often done this when we were small, on winter nights when the warmest place to sleep was in front of the fire. Just as the sun came up, Jack shook me awake.
    “Wake up, sleepyhead,” he said. “Come see what’s in the cornfield.”
    Five minutes later Jack, Mama, and I stood gazing up into the leaves of an enormous beanstalk.
    I’d known it would be there. Hadn’t I felt the moment it began to grow? Even so, it was hard to believe a vine could stretch up and