Messenger - Lois Lowry [0]
Lois Lowry
Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
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Copyright
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HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON
Walter Lorraine Books
Walter Lorraine Books
Copyright © 2004 by Lois Lowry
All rights reserved. For information about permission
to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lowry, Lois.
Messenger / Lois Lowry.
p. cm.
"Walter Lorraine Books."
Summary: In this novel that unites characters from "The
Giver" and "Gathering Blue," Matty, a young member of a
utopian community that values honesty, conceals an emerg-
ing healing power that he cannot explain or understand.
ISBN 0-618-40441-4
[1. Utopias—Fiction. 2. Community life—Fiction. 3.
Healing—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L9673Me 2004
[Fic]—dc22
2003014789
Printed in the United States of America
QUM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
1
Matty was impatient to have the supper preparations over and done with. He wanted to cook, eat, and be gone. He wished he were grown so that he could decide when to eat, or whether to bother eating at all. There was something he needed to do, a thing that scared him. Waiting just made it worse.
Matty was no longer a boy, but not yet a man. Sometimes, standing outside the homeplace, he measured himself against the window. Once he had stood only to its sill, his forehead there, pressing into the wood, but now he was so tall he could see inside without effort. Or, moving back in the high grass, he could see himself reflected in the glass pane. His face was becoming manly, he thought, though childishly he still enjoyed making scowls and frowns at his own reflection. His voice was deepening.
He lived with the blind man, the one they called Seer, and helped him. He cleaned the homeplace, though cleaning bored him. The man said it was necessary. So Matty swept the wooden floor each day and straightened the bedcovers: neatly on the man's bed, with haphazard indifference on his own, in the room next to the kitchen. They shared the cooking. The man laughed at Matty's concoctions and tried to teach him, but Matty was impatient and didn't care about the subtlety of herbs.
"We can just put it all together in the pot," Matty insisted. "It all goes together in our bellies anyway."
It was a long-standing and friendly argument. Seer chuckled. "Smell this," he said, and held out the pale green shoot that he'd been chopping.
Matty sniffed dutifully. "Onion," he said, and shrugged. "We can just throw it in.
"Or," he added, "we don't even need to cook it. But then our breath stinks. There's a girl promised she'd kiss me if I have sweet breath. But I think she's teasing."
The blind man smiled in the boy's direction. "Teasing's part of the fun that comes before kissing," he told Matty, whose face had flushed pink with embarrassment.
"You could trade for a kiss," the blind man suggested with a chuckle. "What would you give? Your fishing pole?"
"Don't. Don't joke about the trading."
"You're right, I shouldn't. It used to be a lighthearted thing. But now—you're right, Matty. It's not to be laughed at anymore."
"My friend Ramon went to the last Trade Mart, with his parents. But he won't talk about it."
"We won't then, either. Is the butter melted in the pan?"
Matty looked. The butter was bubbling slightly and golden brown. "Yes."
"Add the onion, then. Stir it so it doesn't burn." Matty obeyed.
"Now smell that," the blind man said. Matty sniffed. The gently sautéing onion released an aroma that made his mouth water.
"Better than raw?" Seer asked.
"But a bother," Matty replied impatiently. "Cooking's a bother."
"Add some sugar. Just a pinch or two. Let it cook for a minute and then we'll put the rabbit in. Don't be so impatient, Matty. You always want to rush things, and there's no need."
"I want to go out before night comes. I have something to check. I need to eat supper and get out there to the clearing