Winter Sky Read Online Free PDF Page A

smoke.
    Danny and Willie were looking up, hands on their hips. “Go, Iz!” Willie called.
    Siria zigzagged closer to them, looking up, too.
    “Up early,” Danny said.
    She nodded. It was great to fire chase in the daytime—no hiding. But there wasn’t really a fire. Up high, on the tip of a branch, was a little black cat. She arched her back like a leftover pinup from Halloween. One paw was extended, ready to scratch.
    As Izzy reached out to grab her, she moved to the next branch. But Izzy was faster, and then the cat was in her arms, climbing up on her shoulder.
    Danny grinned. “What a rescue!”
    “Sharp claws,” Izzy called on her way down.
    Siria waved, then went back upstairs. Pop was awake, sitting at the kitchen table, turning the of his newspaper. “I thought you were asleep.” He patted the chair next to him.
    “Izzy just saved a kitten from that half-dead tree outside.”
    “That’s the best part of firefighting. The rescue.”
    She slid into the chair and reached for a bagel. “Even a kitten?”
    “Anything that’s alive. To do something for someone who needs help. It’s a great feeling.” He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and went back to his newspaper.
    What about that poor dog, wandering around with no one to feed him? How thin he was. Even with that matted hair.
    The dog was starving.
    She took time buttering the bagel. Suddenly she wasn’t hungry. She took a couple of bites, then went into the bedroom to reach under her pillow.
    She pulled out the small book with the soft green cover where Mom had written down some of the old legends, and stories she’d imagined herself, about the constellations.
    Once, Pop had said, “Mom and I would sit out on the balcony, holding hands, looking up at the winter sky, even when it was freezing.”
    Siria searched for one of the stories, one she could hardly remember. She stopped to read about the Milky Way with its millions of stars splashed across the dark. On another page, Mom had written about huge planets turning and tilting, and bursts of fire as stars streaked through the sky.
    But that wasn’t what Siria was looking for. It was something near the beginning of the book.
    Mom was telling her exactly what to do, no matter how impossible it seemed.
    And hadn’t Pop told her that rescue was everything?
    She had to do it. She had to save that fearful dog.

    Orion was a mighty hunter, but a scorpion scuttled into the folds of his cloak and stung him! The poison went through the hunter’s body, paralyzing …
    Killing
.
    How sad it was for Diana, goddess of the hunt, to see Orion there, all the fight gone out of him. She had to help him!
    She carried him up high into the sky, among the stars
.
    His sword hangs from the three bright stars on his belt. His club is raised in one hand, and the pelt of a great lion he killed dangles from another
.
    With him are his two companions: a great dog with a gem star called Sirius in his collar, and a smaller playful dog. They travel around the sky together
.

CHAPTER 8
    It was one thing to grab a small cat with sharp little claws, but another to rescue a massive dog that looked like a wolf.
    Siria shivered. Maybe Laila would help. Or Douglas.
    But right now, she and Laila were on their way to the firehouse to see the cat. They rushed into the elevator, stepping over someone’s stale doughnut. The walls were one big mess of graffiti. “Very colorful.” Laila twirled around to admire all of it.
    Someone had written
Mery Christmas
. “The graffiti artist didn’t know how to spell.” Siria rubbed at the red and green paint, probably stolen from Max’s Art Supply Store.
    Outside, they waved to the dry cleaner guy, thenpassed Mr. Trencher outside his store. “I’m breathing in the cold air,” he called. “I smell snow on the way.”
    “Me too!” Siria yelled back.
    She and Laila swung hands as they crossed the avenue and passed the school. Presidents’ heads, molded in cement, poked out of the walls