Eternity (Montgomery/Taggert 17)

Tem perked up at that proclamation.

The four of them packed a lunch, then went to the stream and put their poles in the water. Carrie and Dallas caught fish almost instantly. An hour later they had four, and the boys hadn’t caught one. Then an hour went by, and no fish were caught by the females.

It was Dallas who saw what her father was doing. Every time a fish nibbled at Carrie’s or Dallas’s pole, Josh pointed out something in the woods to Carrie, and while she was looking away, Tem threw a stone at the fish.

Showing unusual cleverness for a child so young, Dallas didn’t yell about what she was seeing. Instead, the next time a fish nibbled at Carrie’s pole, she screamed that a bee had stung her, and while her father was tending to his daughter, Carrie reeled the fish in. It took Dallas three attacks of bees, wasps, and a killer bird before her father realized what she was doing. Tem was complaining nonstop about having girls along on a manly fishing trip, but when Josh realized that he had been beaten at his own game by a five-year-old, he picked his daughter up, twirled her around, and laughed gleefully. Carrie and Tem watched the two of them in consternation. “Crazy,” Tem finally declared, looking back at his pole.

By the afternoon, the girls were two fishes ahead and declared themselves the winners. Josh and Tem outdid themselves in coming up with excuses as to why they hadn’t caught as many fish as the females, talking about their poles, their bait, about how Tem was tired from his ordeal of the night before, how Josh was tired from working all the time, and how it wasn’t the right time to fish. On and on they went.

Dallas, imitating Carrie, put her hands on her hips and listened to the excuses.

When the two males finally began to wind down, Carrie said, “Dallie, honey, aren’t men the worst losers in the world?”

Dallas gave a very solemn nod, took Carrie’s hand, and walked toward the lunch basket, the males trailing behind, all the while sputtering that they weren’t bad losers, that they just…well, you know.

Carrie allowed the losers to serve lunch to the winners, and she and Dallas had a lovely time asking the men to hand them things that they couldn’t reach. Of course, sometimes they had to lean backward to keep from reaching the items, but their thank yous dripped with sugar.

After they’d eaten, Carrie brought out a newly published book that she’d bought in Maine before leaving. It was Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. She asked the children if they’d like for her to read to them, and both kids and Josh, stretched out drowsily on the quilt they’d brought, nodded.

But Carrie hadn’t read more than two pages before the children grew restless. When she asked them if they wanted to do something else, they both declared that more than anything they wanted to hear the story, so Carrie started to read again. This time Dallas and Tem began to give each other looks, rolling their eyes skyward.

Carrie put the book down. “What is wrong with you two?” she asked. “And I want the truth. No lies.”

She could see that Tem didn’t want to say, so she looked at Dallas.

“Papa reads much better,” Dallas said simply.

Carrie was surprised and maybe a little hurt by the comment, for she had often read books to shut-ins and to children, and quite often she’d been told that she was the best reader they’d ever heard.

Without a great deal of grace, she held the book out to Josh. “Please,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “I do hope you can read as well as you can fish.”

Giving her a smile that was more smirk than smile, he took the book from her. From the moment he began reading, Carrie knew that there was no contest. Josh could indeed read. No, he didn’t just read, he created the story. He made the listener see and hear Alice. When Josh read, you could see, feel, almost touch the White Rabbit.

Carrie couldn’t see how he did it. Some people when reading aloud exaggerate every scene, doing the voices of all the characters with such enthusiasm that after a while the listener is tired just from hearing them. But Josh’s rendition of the story was subtle, molding his voice around the words in a way that made them live, never stumbling once, never stammering, never pausing over a story that was too new for him to have possibly read before.

Lying back on the quilt, her eyes closed, Carrie fell into the story, imagining everything she heard about Alice and all the people she met in her strange adventure.

When Josh stopped reading, she wanted to beg him to go on. As she opened her eyes, she was surprised that she wasn’t still in the Red Queen’s garden. She was also surprised to discover that it was nearly sundown and Josh had been reading all afternoon, yet his voice wasn’t hoarse nor did his throat seem to be dry.

“That was wonderful,” Carrie breathed when she managed to bring herself back to the present. Rolling over, she looked at him, her eyes shining. “I’ve never heard a reading like that. Josh, you are…”

“The best?” Tem asked eagerly, as though her answer was of life and death importance to him. “Is Papa the greatest person on earth?”

Carrie laughed. It was what he’d asked his father about her last night. “Close,” she said. “He’s certainly the best reader in the world.”

>

“Papa used to—”

“Dallas!” Josh snapped.

Carrie grimaced, for the spell was broken. Josh had once again reminded her that she was an outsider.

Getting up, Carrie began putting things in the basket.

Josh seemed to understand what was wrong with her as he put his hand on her wrist. “Carrie,” he began, “there are reasons—”

She cut him off. “You don’t have to explain anything to me.” Her voice was angry. “I’m not part of your family or your life, remember? I’m going back to my father in two days.” She almost choked on the words. In a mere three days she’d leave her new family and go back to Maine.