Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead Read Online Free PDF

enormous stripey ones that took large bites out of the water-lily leaves.
    As Dennis lay in the sun, he thought how pleasant it was having a picnic with Emma in charge. He remembered other afternoons when his father had forced him to bathe from the boat, and, when he had clutched at the sides with his terrified hands, his father had bashed his fingers with a paddle and laughed and yelled at his struggles in the water. When at last he was allowed to climb back, his teeth used to chatter. That seemed to make his father laugh even more. He used to lie at the bottom of the boat while his father laughed and Emma dried him, grumbling at their father as she rubbed with a towel. So far this year there had not been any of those dreadful bathes. For sometimes the floods made the river unsuitable for boating and now Willoweed hardly noticed the children. It was weeks since they had had their morning lessons. They guessed this would go on until their grandmother suddenly realized what was happening. Then there would be a great tornado, in which their father would become almost crushed to a pulp, and the lessons would start again with new vigour, until Grandmother Willoweed lost interest in them and they would gradually peter out again. Dennis often wondered why his father, who seemed to set such store by bravery, was always so cowed by his mother. He thought perhaps it was chivalry.
    The sun was very warm and there was the sound of music gradually coming nearer. A boat passed with a gramophone with a large green horn. A man in a striped blazer was punting, and a woman with golden hair sat under a red parasol. She changed a record on the gramophone and a grunting, wailing organ filled the air. “How I hate organs” thought Emma, “I’m sure people who like organs eat cheese cakes and call their drawing rooms lounges.” She lay on her back imagining the golden-haired woman sitting in her lounge, eating eternal cheese cakes and listening to a fruity organ. She would have several little girls she called “the kiddies.” They would have crimped hair with large pink bows on the top, and wear patent-leather shoes and shiny satin bridesmaids’ frocks on summer Sundays. Then she forgot about the family of cheese-cake-and-organ-lovers because the children seemed to have vanished. She sat up and saw they were in the field behind, throwing stones into cow pats; so she turned her back on them and sat watching the river.
    She called to the children and they left off their disgusting game and returned. Hattie was carrying a rusty tin filled with newts they had caught with their hands in a nearby pond. They insisted on putting them in the boat to take home. Then it was discovered that all the strings of Dennis’s boats had become entangled and had to be sorted out before the boats would float properly. Emma rather welcomed these delays. She wanted to be certain the whist drive had really ended before she returned. She rowed home with leisurely strokes. There was no sound of screams coming from the house, so she gathered the party had been a success from her grandmother’s point of view.
    The guests had all departed, and the maids were folding up the card tables in the drawing room. Then she heard her grandmother calling, “Emma, Emma,” in her nasal voice.
    “Please God, don’t let her be in one of her rages,” prayed Emma, as she hurried to the dining room, where her grandmother’s excited voice seemed to be coming from. Grandmother Willoweed was pouring herself a glass of port. Both the ends of her tongue were protruding—rather a bad sign. When she saw Emma standing there looking so apprehensive, she put her glass down on the sideboard and said, “Doctor Hatt was called away in the middle of my whist drive. His wife was worse—her nose was bleeding.” She filled her glass from the decanter and gave Emma a strange glance.
    “Well, peoples’ noses are always bleeding. You are supposed to put a large key down their back.”
    Emma