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Inhaltsangabe
If you had a chance to step through a window to the past, would you take it?
A Walk Through a Window is the story of Darby, a young girl forced to spend the summer with grandparents she doesn’t know in a place she feels she can never belong. But when a boy down the street extends a hand, it is more than friendship he offers. Together they discover a magical stone window frame that transports them to the very centre of the dramas of our past: the Underground Railroad; the coffin ships of the Irish Potato Famine; and even the Inuit as they crossed the Bering Land Bridge into North America.
Over the course of the long, very strange summer, Darby is forced to question part of own her life. And as tragedy threatens her family, that magical walk through a window offers Darby new insight into the people she has always taken for granted – and changes forever her perception of Canada.
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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren
kc dyer was for many years a teacher in public, private, and Montessori schools. Currently, she writes full-time and lives just outside Vancouver. She is the author of four previous YA novels, most recently Ms. Zephyr’s Notebook. Her second novel, Secret of Light, was nominated for the Chocolate Lily Award in 2005.
kc dyer was for many years a teacher in public, private, and Montessori schools. Currently, she writes full-time and lives just outside Vancouver. She is the author of four previous YA novels, most recently Ms. Zephyr&;s Notebook. Her second novel, Secret of Light, was nominated for the Chocolate Lily Award in 2005.
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Chapter One
Escape was clearly the only option.
“This is the wrong address,” Darby said to the cab driver. “Just take me back to the airport – I’ll figure something out there.”
“I’m sorry, dear,” the driver said apologetically, and gestured at the scrap of paper clipped to his dashboard. “I’ve been given strict instructions to drop one Miss D. Christopher at this here address. And if I know Etta, she’d be mighty upset with me if I misplaced her granddaughter.”
Great. Darby stared glumly out the window at the scene unfolding outside. “You know my Nan?”
The cab driver popped the trunk and heaved himself out of the car. “Everyone knows your nan, kiddo. She’s a good sport. So’s your grandpa.”
Darby didn’t budge. From the cab window she watched as a woman with vivid red hair stepped up and placed her hand on the shoulder of some guy operating a ladder on a fire truck. Even from inside the cab Darby could see the way the woman’s lips pinched together.
She was talking to Ladder Guy. After a few words he nodded and yelled up to his partner. The bucket lowered with a jerk, the woman stepped inside and the contraption rose up to near the top of the tree.
Bad enough to be stuck in some little one-lobster town for the summer. Bad enough to have to fly here as an unaccompanied minor in a cattle car disguised as an airplane. Bad enough that no one bothered to show up to meet the plane. But when the taxi pulled up in front of Darby’s grandparents’ house it was hard to decide which was worse: a man she had never met perched high in the branches of an old oak tree, or the crowd below, as they laughed, chatted and cheered on the fireman in his cherry picker, trying to talk the old coot down.
Darby recognized Gramps from a couple of old pictures that her dad kept in a bottom drawer. She’d never met either of her grandparents in person – at least as long as she could remember. Nan had to be one of the grey-haired ladies waiting at the bottom of the ladder. She hadn’t seen her face yet, mostly because Darby didn’t want to meet anyone’s eye. Why any of this was happening was a mystery. She could feel her face flaming.
The cab driver opened the door and offered his hand to help Darby out. She ignored it, grabbed her backpack and stepped onto the street. It must have rained earlier, and one of her new white runners splashed square into a rusty puddle by the curb.
Great.
“Was trying to help you avoid that,” muttered the driver, as he stalked around the back of the vehicle.
Darby thought about getting mad at this, but the truth was the scene in the front yard had used up all her available emotions at the moment.
She felt the cabbie’s hand on her shoulder. “Yer grandpa is just having everyone on, Missy. The man has a sense of humour that’s funny as a three-dollar bill.”
She shook off his hand and forced herself to look around the crowd of people. The two grey-haired women stood out from the rest. While everyone else chattered and laughed, they stayed put right near the truck, watching the other lady take her trip up in the cherry picker. Darby took a deep breath, shouldered her pack and headed over.
At the treetop, the red-haired woman was having more luck than Ladder Guy. She had barely said two words before the old man was reaching his hand out to grasp the side of the bucket. He stepped smartly into the cherry picker just like it had been his plan all along.
Ladder Guy steered the bucket down and Darby’s grandfather waved to the cheering crowd as they descended. The shadows began to lengthen and people started to wander away.
One of the old women on the ground embraced the red-haired woman as she stepped out of the cherry picker, so Darby headed for the other one.
“Excuse me,” she said, but the woman did not appear to hear. Darby repeated herself a bit louder. The lady finally heard Darby and turned in surprise. “Goodness gracious!” she said, peering up into her face.“This must be wee Darby!”
Since the girl was taller by about three inches, Darby felt she could have safely dropped the “wee” part. Sheesh.
The lady looked over at the cab. The taxi driver had walked over to shake hands with the crazy old man and both of them were laughing uproariously.
“We’ve been expecting you, dear,” she said, and immediately began rummaging in the giant vinyl bag that dangled from her arm. “Ernie will need his fare. Let me just look after it, now that all the excitement is over.” She scurried across and thrust some money at the driver who doffed his hat.
“Thank you kindly, Helen. That’ll do nicely.” Darby could hear his radio crackle from the depths of his car. He gave a final slap on the shoulder to the star of the show and slammed himself back into his cab before slowly coasting off down the street.
The old lady scurried across the grass and gave Darby another thorough looking-over before clutching her by the arm. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened a little.
“Quite an arrival time you’ve chosen,” she said. “Hasn’t been this much excitement since someone tried to blow up the legislature a few years ago.”
Great. Nothing like a grandparent whose antics compare to a terrorist act.
Still clutching Darby’s arm, she turned to holler across the lawn. “Look who I’ve got here, Etta!” she crowed. The red-haired woman snapped her head around.
As soon as Darby saw the red-haired woman’s face up close, she knew her. She looked just like Darby’s dad, except shorter, wrinklier and female, of course.
“Helen,” she said to the lady who was still gripping Darby like a prize tuna, “did you pay Ernie for his drive from the airport?”
Great, thought Darby. We haven’t even met yet, and I’m already a financial burden.
“There’s no need for that, I’m sure,” she said, when Helen bobbed her head. “Now take this, and thank you for your kindness.”
She pressed money into Helen’s palm and turned to face Darby, taking the girl’s shoulders in her hands and gazing at her from arm’s length.
“So this is the Darby-girl at last.” For the first time a smile broke through the worry on her face. “I meant to meet you at the airport, but as you can see, my plans changed a little.” She brushed her hands off briskly. “Excitement’s all over, my dear. Let’s get you inside and settled, shall we?”
“But . . .” Darby looked over at the old man, still beaming and shaking hands with well-wishers.
“Ach, never mind your grandfather right now, love. I’ll see to him presently.”
Nan bustled off, muttering something about dinner being charred beyond recognition. The fire truck honked once as it pulled away from the curb, and Darby reached down to grab her suitcase from where Ernie had left it on the front porch.
The scent of dinner wafted through a window. In spite of Nan’s worry, nothing smelled burned, but Darby didn’t feel hungry in the slightest. As she straightened up with her suitcase, she found Gramps standing with a hand on the porch rail. He’d stopped laughing.
“Last saw you when you were ten days old,” he said. “Ye’ve grown a bit.”
What else did he expect? Darby didn’t know what to say – so she settled on saying nothing at...
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