The Velvet Room
Page 18
“Moving? Why? Where?”
“We can’t stay here because the new man for the mule barns will need this house.”
“But where are we going?” Robin asked.
Dad looked a little worried. “Mr. McCurdy said that in a few years they may be able to convert the old garage out behind Palmeras House into a nice little home. But in the meantime, we’re to have the back rooms in the east wing of the old house. You know, they’re set off by themselves on the other side of the dining hall. We’ll have the kitchen, the breakfast room, and four little rooms that used to be servants’ quarters. Mr. McCurdy wants me right there where I can keep my eye on things at night as well as in the daytime.” Dad put his hand on Robin’s shoulder. “I know how much you’ve wanted us to have a home of our own. This won’t be quite the same. But Mama will love that huge kitchen with all those cupboards, and we’ll have lots more space than we do here.”
Robin laughed right out loud. For once Dad didn’t seem to know how she felt about something. “Oh, Dad,” she said. “It’s wonderful. I don’t care if it’s not a house just like everybody else’s. And it doesn’t matter that it’s not really ours, either. What matters is ... She stopped for a moment, trying to decide just what it was that did matter so much. “I guess it’s mostly having the same place long enough to feel that we belong somewhere. And ... well, it ought to be beautiful and look as if it was really meant for people.”
Dad laughed. “And how do you decide if a house was really meant for people?”
“Well, for one thing, it ought to look as if it would last for ages. It takes such a long time for people to grow up and get old. It seems to me that houses ought to look strong and solid.”
There was the sound of voices, and Mama, Theda, and Shirley came in the front door. Dad called Rudy out from under the car, and even Cary appeared from somewhere. For a long time cabin three of Palmeras Village was a confusion of questions and answers. And nobody seemed happier than Mama. No one had heard her mention it before, but it was suddenly clear that Mama had hated the thought of living at Uncle Joe’s worse than—well, maybe even worse than Robin.
In the midst of all the excitement Robin slipped out the door and down the steps. She was almost to the orchard when there was a sound of footsteps right behind her.
“Hi,” Cary said. “Are you ‘wandering off’ again?”
“No,” Robin said quickly, and then to her surprise she realized it was true. It wasn’t “wandering off” at all. There was none of the old feeling of things not being real—none of the confusion and need to get away. She just wanted to walk over to Palmeras House to look at it and think about how wonderful it was going to be to live there and help take care of it.
“No,” she said again, “not really. I’m just going over to look around.” She looked down at Cary’s freckled face and bright blue eyes. “Want to come along?”
“Sure,” Cary said.
In a few minutes they had climbed over the stone wall and were walking across the dead lawn. “See right up there?” Robin said. “That’s the tower where I hid when the robbers came. It’s part of a big library room that runs all along where those arched windows are. I’ll show it to you once we get moved in.”
She smiled at Cary who was gazing upward with round-eyed awe. “I used to call it the Velvet Room,” she said.
A Biography of Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Zilpha Keatley Snyder (b. 1927) is the three-time Newbery Honor–winning author of classic children’s novels such as The Egypt Game, The Headless Cupid, and The Witches of Worm. Her adventure and fantasy stories are beloved by many generations.
Snyder was born in Lemoore, California, in 1927. Her father, William Keatley, worked for Shell Oil, but as a would-be rancher he and his family always lived on a small farm. Snyder’s parents were both storytellers, and their tales often kept their children entertained during quiet evenings at home.
Snyder began reading and telling stories of her own at an early age. By the time she was four years old she was able to read novels and newspapers intended for adults. When she wasn’t reading, she was making up and embellishing stories. When she was eight, Snyder decided that she would be a writer—a profession in which embellishment and imagination were accepted and rewarded.
Snyder’s adolescent years were made more difficult by her studious country upbringing and by the fact that she had been advanced a grade when she started school. As other girls were going to dances and discovering boys, Snyder retreated into books. The stories transported her from her small room to a larger, remarkable universe.
At Whittier College, Zilpha Keatley Snyder met her future husband, Larry Snyder. After graduation, she began teaching upper-level elementary classes. Snyder taught for nine years, including three years as a master teacher for the University of California, Berkeley. The classroom experience gave Snyder a fresh appreciation of the interests and capabilities of preteens.
As she continued her teaching career, Snyder gained more free time. She began writing at night, after teaching during the day; her husband helped by typing out her manuscripts. After finishing her first novel, she sent it to a publisher. It was accepted on her first try. That book, Season of Ponies, was published in 1964.
In 1967, her fourth novel, The Egypt Game, won the Newbery Honor for excellence in children’s literature. Snyder went on to win that honor two more times, for her novels The Headless Cupid and The Witches of Worm. The Headless Cupid introduced the Stanley family, a clan she revisited three more times over her career.
Snyder’s The Changeling (1970), in which two young girls invent a fantasy world dominated by trees, became the inspiration for her 1974 fantasy series, the Green Sky Trilogy. Snyder completed that series by writing a computer game sequel called Below the Root. The game went on to earn cult classic status.
Over the almost fifty years of her career, Snyder has written about topics as diverse as time-traveling ghosts, serenading gargoyles, and adoption at the turn of the twentieth century. Today, she lives with her husband in Mill Valley, California. When not writing, Snyder enjoys reading and traveling.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
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, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved © 1965, 2004 by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
978-1-4532-7199-5
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
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