Posted: 3:19 am
October 8, 2008
STORY SO FAR: With the teacher leaving, the one-room school house must close, putting an end to Ida's hopes of going on. Tom, Ida's friend, suggests she be the teacher.
Written by Avi
Illustrated by Brian Floca
CHAPTER FOUR
Ida Asks for Advice
"Clutch! Brake!" Ida called to Felix as she guided the backfiring car into their farmyard driveway.
Bleating lambs, tails up, ran in fright and Snooker, their old mare, looked over the corral fence. The corral was next to their log house, built by grandfather Noah almost thirty years earlier.
"Felix," Ida whispered as they walked toward the front door, "don't tell mom or dad what happened in school."
Felix's face turned quizzical. "How come?"
"I need to tell them my way.
Understand?"
"Okay," Felix said, accepting, as
always, his sister's older ways.
A red-faced Mrs. Bidson was in the steamy kitchen, heating laundry atop the wood-burning stove. Baby Shelby was on her hip.
"Hi there," she called. "How was school?"
"Fine," Ida said.
Felix darted a look at Ida but she put a finger to her lips. "Want some help with Shelby?" she offered.
"Thank you, love," Mrs. Bidson said, handing the baby over. "Felix, your dad's in the barn. Said to tell you he needs you soon as you got in."
Felix swallowed a glass of milk, stuffed his mouth with a hunk of bread. Before racing away, he whispered, "Why didn't you tell Mom Miss Fletcher is leaving Wednesday?"
"I'm not sure what I'm going to do."
"Do? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Tell you when I make up my mind."
That evening, up in the loft bedroom Ida shared with her brother, she put aside the year-old Saturday Evening Post she'd been reading, lay back and stared up at the wood plank roof. She liked to imagine different pictures for the grain patterns. One night it was a map. Another time it was secret writing. Sometimes it was music.
When Felix was asleep, Ida slipped out of her bed, and in her flannel nightgown, crept down the steps to the kitchen. Her mother was still awake, boiling baby bottles.
"Hello, little darling," her mother said with a quick if tired smile. "Thought you'd long gone to sleep."
"Couldn't."
"Something working your mind?"
Ida perched upon a chair and pulled her gown over
her toes. "Can I talk?" she asked gravely.
Her mother looked around. "I'm listening."
"It's school. Miss Fletcher's mother is very sick and she's going home Wednesday to be with her. Mr. Jordan--he's head of the school board--said they wouldn't replace her."
"For heaven's sake. Why?"
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