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Show 6-6 I wasn't looking at the happy village any more. The page glared in the sun. His soft whisper went on. "The people had all left before I got there. The sergeant said they had all gone. And the animals were eaten. And the church was bombed. We slept in it one night." I imagined the church in the tiay village with its steeple gone. "No, I don't remember ..." I covered the page with my arms and hugged the book to me. "I'm sorry, I thought you would like to see it." I dragged my bookbag onto my lap and began to push the book into it. "I wasn't there long," he spoke louder now, "I was there only two months. I didn't see anything beautiful in France." "I'm sorry." He turned to me, where I huddled next to him on the bench. The hot sun hurt my eyes, reflecting from the metal buckle on my bookbag strap. "Hey, it's ok." He spoke, nudging me with his elbow. "It's still a nice book." "I thought you would like to see where you'd been. I'm sorry." "Stop saying that. You're just a kid. You couldn't know." I had to do something to make up to him for what I had done, for bringing that picture book to his poor twisted eyes. "Would you like a cookie? And an apple? Grandmother makes delicious oatmeal cookies." I reached down into the bag, around the books, where the nobby cookies and cool apples lay wrapped in cheesecloth. I flattened the bookbag on my lap and unwrapped the cloth. "These look good. My grannie made some like these," Andrew said as I held one up to him. |
