Dolan cleared his throat. “To Iris's daughters!” The traditional toast at the birth of a daughter.
Thea raised her glass. With her other arm, she pulled Lucian into the group. “But first, to Iris. May she be brave enough to take the rightful path, and fortunate enough to have friends who can help her to see it.”
And they drank.
Peter lay in bed and watched through the skylight as darkness fell. Feet was sprawled over his legs.
“Ouch. Feet, can you move?”
The big dog picked his head up and panted happily.
“Please? My legs are numb.”
More happy panting.
“Okay. You win.” Peter spread the fingers of one hand and tapped the palm of the other: Food.
Feet rocketed off the bed and down the coat-closetstairs. A second later, Peter heard his mother laugh in the kitchen downstairs. “Again? You eat more than the rest of us together!”
“Any special requests, Peter?” She called. “I'm ordering dinner from Mama Foo's.”
Feet was practically addicted to moo shu chicken.
“Just the usual. Don't forget, Miles is sleeping over!” The lights in the windows across the street began to blink on, but Peter looked beyond them, to the sky. If it stayed clear, he would be able to see the stars later. Real ones. He'd been practicing.
Miles rang the doorbell five minutes after the food arrived. He sniffed the air suspiciously. “We're not having Chinese food, are we?”
“Of course we are! It's Friday.”
“But Feet always farts after Chinese!”
Peter laughed. “I'll turn on the fan.”
They were up in the loft getting ready for bed when Peter's dad came home. He had lots of meetings these days.
“Pete!” his father called. “Postcard from Jonas!” Jonas was doing fieldwork in Colorado. The card came flying in over the loft railing from the living room. Feet ran for it, but Peter got there first.
The front of the card was a picture of a Volkswagen, asporty one. Peter flipped it over: Next time we'll find it. He smiled and propped it up on his shelf next to Sela's sketch of Sasha and the blue golf ball Jonas had sent him for Christmas.
Miles unrolled his sleeping bag. “I still don't get why they call it Greenland. I'm going to think of something better.”
Peter looked through the skylight and thought of all the words he wished he could share with Miles: lightglobe, Chikchu, Mainway, eye adept. The night sky glowed faintly. Feet jumped up and draped himself over Peter's legs.
Miles was still talking. “‘Iceland’ is taken, obviously. How about‘Snowland’?”
“Sounds like a Christmas display at Macy's,” Peter mumbled. “The Greenlanders call it‘human's land.’ ”
“Human's land? But that could be anywhere.”
Peter held still and drew the stars down to him until a blanket of lights seemed to shine softly just over his head. “You're right,” he said. “It could be anywhere.”
My deepest thanks to J. Alison James, Karen Romano Young, and my editor, Wendy Lamb, for their encouragement, insight, and tireless scrutiny of my many drafts. I am also obliged to Robert Warren, Ruth Homberg, and Faye Bender for their advice and penetrating questions. And I'm very grateful for my nonadult readers: Anika James, Kye and Ivo Lippold, and Marissa Keller.
I owe a special debt to Konrad Steffen, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, who corresponded with me so generously about arctic fieldwork. Any error or embellishment is, of course, my own doing.
Published by Wendy Lamb Books
an imprint of Random House Children's Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the author's imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2007 by Rebecca Stead
All rights reserved.
WENDY LAMB BOOKS and colophon are
trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.randomhouse.com/kids
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools,
visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stead, Rebecca.
First light/Rebecca Stead. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When twelve-year-old Peter and his family arrive in
Greenland for his father's research, he stumbles upon a secret his
mother has been hiding from him all his life, and begins an adventure
he never imagines possible.
[1. Secrets—Fiction. 2. Greenland—Fiction. 3. Adventure and
adventurers—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S80857Fi 2007
[Fic]—dc22 2006039733
eISBN: 978-0-307-49547-1
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1 - Peter
Chapter 2 - Peter
Chapter 3 - Thea
Chapter 4 - Thea
Chapter 5 - Peter
Chapter 6 - Thea
Chapter 7 - Peter
Chapter 8 - Thea
Chapter 9 - Peter
Chapter 10 - Thea
Chapter 11 - Peter
Chapter 12 - Thea
Chapter 13 - Peter
Chapter 14 - Thea
Chapter 15 - Peter
Chapter 16 - Thea
Chapter 17 - Peter
Chapter 18 - Thea
Chapter 19 - Peter
Chapter 20 - Thea
Chapter 21 - Thea
Chapter 22 - Peter
Chapter 23 - Thea
Chapter 24 - Peter
Chapter 25 - Thea
Chapter 26 - Peter
Chapter 27 - Thea
Chapter 28 - Thea
Chapter 29 - Peter
Chapter 30 - Thea
Chapter 31 - Peter
Chapter 32 - Peter
Chapter 33 - Thea
Chapter 34 - Thea
Chapter 35 - Peter
Chapter 36 - Thea
Chapter 37 - Peter
Chapter 38 - Thea
Epilogue - Peter
Acknowledgments
Copyright
First Light Page 21