Proginoskes let out several puffs. “That’s not what I meant. I meant that cherubim only matter with earth people. Maybe you’d call it materializing. Most of the time we’re winds, or flames of fire.”
“Then, if you become visible only for us, why do you have to look so terrifying?”
“Because when we matter, this is how we come out. When you got mattered, you didn’t choose to look the way you do, did you?”
“I certainly did not. I’d have chosen quite differently. I’d have chosen to be beautiful—oh, I see! You’re not like the Mrs W, doing it the way you want to, just for fun?”
Proginoskes held three of its wings over most of its eyes. “I am a cherubim, and when a cherubim becomes flesh, this is how.”
Meg knelt in front of the great, frightening, and strangely beautiful creature. “Progo, I feel. I can’t think without feeling. If you matter to me, then what you decide to do if I fail matters.”
“I don’t see why.”
She scrambled to her feet and shouted, “Because if you decide to turn into a worm or a dragon or whatever, and work for the darkness, I don’t care whether I name right or not! It just doesn’t matter to me!”
Proginoskes probed into her mind thoughtfully. “I don’t understand your feelings. I’m trying, but I don’t. It must be extremely unpleasant to have feelings.”
One of the Mr. Jenkinses called, “Your time is almost up.”
“Progo! What will you do?”
Proginoskes folded its great wings completely about itself. All its eyes were covered. “Not. If you fail, I will not myself.”
Meg swung around and faced the three men. “Mr. Jenkins Three—”
He stepped forward, smiling triumphantly.
She shook her head. “No. You are not the real Mr. Jenkins. I don’t care how much tessering would shake him. He’d never make all those promises.” She looked at Mr. Jenkins One and Two. Her hands were ice-cold and she felt the feeling in the pit of her stomach which precedes acute nausea. “Mr. Jenkins Two—”
He stepped forward.
Again she shook her head. “You kept telling me to name you. Mr. Jenkins would never ask me anything. The only one of you who is as bad as the real Mr. Jenkins is Mr. Jenkins One—” Suddenly she gave a startled laugh. “And I do love you for it!” Then she burst into tears of nervousness and exhaustion. But she had no doubt that she was right.
The air was rent with a great howling and shrieking, and then a cold nothingness even emptier than the wrinkle in time of tessering. For a horrible moment she thought that she had been wrong and it was the cherubim being made not, but then she saw that there was only one Mr. Jenkins standing on the hilltop and that Proginoskes was still there, delicately unfolding wing after wing.
“Well, Meg—” Mr. Jenkins said.
“It’s all right, Mr. Jenkins. I know you’re glad you won’t have to have me in school this year, and I don’t blame you.”
“Perhaps—” he started awkwardly, then said, “No. I doubt very much, Margaret, that there will ever be much understanding between you and me. And yet I feel a strange pride that you knew who I was. I feel—yes, I actually feel a certain affection for you. But it is just as well that we are not likely to meet again.”
Meg found herself caught between two of Proginoskes’s wings. “I’ll take you to the dining hall, Meg, and we’ll tell the others all about it. There’s always a great storytelling banquet when anybody passes.”
“Calvin and Mer-boy—Charles Wallace and Sporos—”
“They’ll be there, and we’ll find out about their adventures, too.”
“Did they pass?”
“My dear Meg, as some earthling once said, that’s another story. In fact, it’s two more stories. I do know nobody failed today—we couldn’t be having a banquet otherwise.”
“Do cherubim eat?”
“Moderately, when we’re mattered.”
“I’m famished. And I’m—oh, Progo, wouldn’t you like to feel? I feel absolutely glorious right now. Wouldn’t you like to feel, too?”
Proginoskes stretched all its wings. Meg very clearly understood it to say, “I am doing the cherubic equivalent thereof.” Laughter rippled through it. “Let’s not worry about feeling. Joy is better. Come on, climb up, and I’ll fly you to the banquet.”
Meg clambered up, between wings and eyes, and seated herself in the cherubim. He rose swiftly into the shining air, and they flew rapidly past the hill and over the river and valley, leaving Mr. Jenkins staring after them, and calling, “Don’t get any ideas, Margaret! Don’t think just because I’m not around you won’t have to work!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Madeleine L’Engle (1918’2007) was the Newbery Medal–winning author of more than 60 books, including the much’loved A Wrinkle in Time. Born in 1918, L’Engle grew up in New York City, Switzerland, South Carolina and Massachusetts. Her father was a reporter and her mother had studied to be a pianist, and their house was always full of musicians and theater people. L’Engle graduated cum laude from Smith College, then returned to New York to work in the theater. While touring with a play, she wrote her first book, The Small Rain, originally published in 1945. She met her future husband, Hugh Franklin, when they both appeared in The Cherry Orchard. Upon becoming Mrs. Franklin, L’Engle gave up the stage in favor of the typewriter. In the years her three children were growing up, she wrote four more novels. Hugh Franklin temporarily retired from the theater, and the family moved to western Connecticut and for ten years ran a general store. Her book Meet the Austins, an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book of 1960, was based on this experience. Her science fantasy classic A Wrinkle in Time was awarded the 1963 Newbery Medal. Two companion novels, A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet (a Newbery Honor book), complete what has come to be known as The Time Trilogy, a series that continues to grow in popularity with a new generation of readers. Her 1980 book A Ring of Endless Light won the Newbery Honor. L’Engle passed away in 2007 in Litchfield, Connecticut. You can sign up for email updates here.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Hope Larson is the author of Salamander Dream, Gray Horses, Chiggers, and Mercury. She won a 2007 Eisner Award. She lives in Los Angeles, California. You can sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
Farrar, Straus and Giroux ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on Madeleine L’engle, click here.
For email updates on Hope Larson, click here.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
About the Author and Illustrator
Copyright
Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
An imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Text copyright © 1970 by Crosswicks, Ltd.
Art copyright © 2018 by Hope Larson
Originally published by the Children’s Book Council
All rights reserved
First hardcover edition, 2018
eBook edition, February 2018
mackids.com
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017955156
Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by e-mail at [email protected].
eISBN 9780374310738
Madeleine L'engle, Intergalactic P.S. 3
Intergalactic P.S. 3 Page 4