Secrets of the Cicada Summer , livre ebook

ABRAMS BOOKS - Beaty Andrea

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

66 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Now in paperback!Lily has read every Nancy Drew book in the library. Shes great at spying clues and keeping secrets. She has to be. She has secrets of her own that no one can ever find out.When summer brings lying, stealing Tinny Bridges to town, Lily must depend on her own wits to keep ahead of this sly newcomer. Tinny takes candy from the general store and blames Lily. She tries to steal Lilys friends and even her fathers affection. Worst of all, she seems to know Lilys secret. When Tinny goes missing, only Lily has an idea what happened to her. But for Lily, finding Tinny means confronting her hidden past.With its taut-pacing and lyrical writing, Andrea Beatys critically acclaimed mystery has been hailed as the kind of satisfying read that summer is all about (School Library Journal).Praise for Cicada SummerOne part memory, one part mystery, and a generous dose of atmosphere make this the kind of satisfying read that Summer Reading is all about. School Library JournalBeaty weaves elements from Lilys favorite Nancy Drew stories together with a moving picture of a child . . . KirkusWritten with clarity and fine attention to craft, this accessible novel reveals the secret in Lilys past just as she reaches out to solve the mystery. Booklist

Sujets

Children's

Picture book

Informations

Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	14 janvier 2011
Nombre de lectures	2
EAN13	9781613120019
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0321€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

P RAISE FOR Secrets of the Cicada Summer

Expertly constructed, tense, and very moving . . . this is compelling fiction that will be a hit with young readers, as rich and thought-provoking and yet as accessible as DiCamillo s Because of Winn-Dixie . - The Horn Book
One part memory, one part mystery, and a generous dose of atmosphere make this the kind of satisfying read that Summer Reading is all about. - School Library Journal
Written with clarity and fine attention to craft, this accessible novel reveals the secret in Lily s past just as she reaches out to solve the mystery that shadows Tinny s present. - Booklist
A LSO BY A NDREA BEATY

N OVELS Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies
B OOKS FOR Y OUNG R EADERS When Giants Come to Play Iggy Peck, Architect

PUBLISHER S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition of this book as follows:
Beaty, Andrea. Cicada summer / by Andrea Beaty. p. cm. Summary: Twelve-year-old Lily mourns her brother, and has not spoken since the accident she feels she could of prevented but the summer Tinny comes to town she is the only one who realizes Lily s secret. ISBN 978-0-8109-9472-0 (hardcover) [1. Brothers and sisters-Fiction. 2. Emotional problems-Fiction. 3. Death- Fiction. 4. Grief-Fiction. 5. Secrets-Fiction. 6. Illinois-Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.B380547Ci 2008 [Fic]-dc22 2007022266
Paperback ISBN 978-0-8109-8419-6
Text copyright 2008 Andrea Beaty Book design by Chad W. Beckerman
The text is set in 12-point Adobe Caslon, a font designed by Carol Twombly and based on William Caslon s eighteenth-century typefaces. The display type was created by John Hendrix.
Originally published in hardcover as Cicada Summer in 2008 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. This edition published in 2010. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialmarkets@abramsbooks.com or the address below.
115 West 18th Street New York, NY 10011 www.abramsbooks.com
MYRNA S B OOK -A.B.
1

T HE C ICADAS
SOME PEOPLE THINK THE CICADAS bring trouble when they come to town. I don t think that s true. I think trouble finds its way without any help at all.
The cicadas are everywhere. They came back to Olena two days ago, after seventeen years of hiding in the ground and waiting. Waiting to climb into the sunlight. Waiting to climb the bushes and trees. Waiting to sing.
They waited so long. Then, thousands of them crawled out of the ground and up into the trees and bushes in just one night. Their song sounds like electricity buzzing on a power line, getting higher and higher and louder and louder until the air nearly explodes from the noise.
There are a hundred cicadas on the oak tree outside Mrs. Kirk s sixth-grade classroom. I stand at the window watching them buzz from branch to branch. Their bodies are thick and clumsy, and I wonder how they can fly at all with their thin, little wings.
Then I see the cicada on the bookshelf next to me. It stares at me with its black marble eyes, and I stare back. I m so close, I could thump it off the shelf if I wanted.
I could, but I don t.
At first, no one else notices the cicada. The other kids are hunched over their spelling tests, ready to spell entangled or fearful or mottled or some other word.
This week s words are adjectives, but Mrs. Kirk picked the wrong ones. She should have chosen words like sweaty or noisy or stifling. Stifling would be a good word today. It s so hot, it feels like July and the buzzing of the cicadas squeezes into the room and pushes out the air until no one can breathe. It s stifling .
I stare at the cicada, but even without looking, I know what s going on behind me. In the front row, Judy Thomas is wound up like a tiger ready to pounce on the next spelling word. She presses her pencil so hard against the paper that the lead nearly breaks. When Mrs. Kirk says the next word, Judy will spell it as fast as she can in her perfect handwriting, and then look around to make sure she s the first to finish. Of course she will be. She always is.
In the back row, where the hopeless cases sit-where there s a desk with my name on it-Rose Miner is cheating off Tommy Burkette. Mrs. Kirk knows they re doing it, but she s too hot and too tired to care. Besides, the only person in the whole world who spells worse than Rose is Tommy, so it doesn t make much difference anyway.
After a while, the cicada on the shelf starts buzzing and Rose screams like it s Godzilla or something and Ricky Fitzgerald stands up and yells, It looks like the cicada that got my grandma!
Ricky Fitzgerald has told the story about the cicada that got his grandmother about a hundred times in the last two days. He says the last time the cicadas came around, one flew into his grandma s hair and made her run crazy around the yard until Ricky s grandpa came out with the sheep shears and lopped off half her hair.
I ve seen his grandma s hair. She has one of those beehive hairdos that s tall and round and really hard from all the hairspray she uses. I can see why a cicada would land there. A hair cave like that would be a great place to get out of the sun.
That s what I think, but Ricky says it attacked his grandma to suck out her brains and make her into a zombie.
Ricky Fitzgerald is a dork.
Mrs. Kirk sighs the same way she has about ninety-nine times since the cicadas showed up and Ricky started telling his story.
Thank you, Ricky, she says.
But before Ricky can say another word, Mrs. Kirk says, Bobby, would you get rid of it, please?
I could reach up and touch the cicada without trying, but Mrs. Kirk doesn t ask me. Bobby Bowes gets up from his desk and walks right in front of me. He grabs the cicada in one hand and opens the window screen with the other. He tosses the insect outside, closes the window screen, and sits down again without a word. He doesn t say, Move, Lily, or anything. He doesn t even notice me standing there.
He doesn t notice because I m invisible.
Most people would say that s a lie. They d say that I m not invisible because they can see me as plain as day. Most people are wrong. It s not my skin that makes me invisible. It s my silence. My silence and the trick I do with my eyes where I never look anybody in the face.
You can tell everything about a person by looking in their eyes. I don t want anybody to know anything about me, so I look away.
I ve been invisible for two years now.
At first, everyone tried so hard to make me talk. They talked really loud to me and grabbed my face with their hands so I had to look at them, but I just shifted my eyes away and looked at the floor or the ceiling or something else. Anything else.
Almost everybody got tired of talking to me after a while. That s when I faded away. They can still see me, but I m like an old table to them. Just something to step around. Something to keep from knocking over.
Everyone gave up on me after a while. Everyone but Dad, who can t. And Fern, who won t.
It s been two years, and it s getting hard to remember when I wasn t invisible. Sometimes I wonder if I ll fade so much that I won t even be able to see myself.

After Bobby gets rid of the cicada, Mrs. Kirk goes on with the spelling test, but I don t stick around. I walk past Judy the Spelling Tiger and past the rows of kids scribbling wildly on their papers and out of the room. I walk down the hall with adjectives trailing behind me until I can t hear them anymore.
. . . speckled . . . tangled . . . futile . . .
I go into the school library and let Mrs. Todd s fan blow hot air over me while I stare at the Nancy Drew books. I never let anyone see me read one, and no one thinks I can anymore. But of course I can. I can do everything I used to do, but I don t let anybody know it.
I ve read all of the Nancy Drew books at least fourteen times-except The Haunted Showboat . Some low-life book-thief stole that one. Bookthieves are the lowest form of criminal. I would never steal a book, but I put them in protective custody sometimes, and take them home and read them late at night when no one will see me. Of course I bring them back to school the next day.
If I think a book is really in danger, I hide it and keep it safe until I m done reading it. I hide it in the gap behind the Encyclopaedia Britannica s that runs all the way from ORS to VEN. It s the perfect place to hide a Nancy Drew mystery. Or a Hardy Boys mystery, but who likes them?
Even with Mrs. Todd s fan, it s too hot to be in school, so I leave. I grab The Clue in the Old Album from the shelf and stuff it under my shirt and walk down the hall. Nobody says a word to me as I go. Nobody even notices the twelve-year-old girl walking out the front door of the school in the middle of the day.
I walk to the cottonwood tree at the edge of the school property. Out in the shade, there s nobody to get freaked out by the brain-damaged girl who can suddenly read.
I can just imagine what would happen if someone saw me.
It s a miracle! they d say.
A miracle.
The cottonwood is enormous, and it stretches its branches like arms in every direction and dips its roots into Swift s Creek, which is a pretty funny name because there s no water in it. It s not swift. It s not even a creek.