she hesitated, lost in thought, a jeering voice startled her.
“What are you looking for—Christmas?”
Ellie whirled and stared at the tall, frowning boy who had spoken. She recognized him at once. He was Jeff Purdy and his grandfather was janitor at Ellie’s school. She had seen Jeff many times when he came in to work with Mr. Purdy in the late afternoons. She was quite sure he was in Tony’s high-school class.
“Oh—hi,” she said. She couldn’t think of any answer to his question so she added lamely, “Aren’t you late for school?”
“So what?” he asked, giving her a scornful glance as he strode past her up the alley. The careless swing of his shoulders seemed to make it plain that he didn’t care whether he was late to school or not. Or what Ellie Pride thought about it.
She pursed up her lips and made a face at his back. She started to say, under her breath, “Phooey to you, Jeff Purdy,” when, to her surprise, she saw him turn and glance at her.
It was a furtive look, and he turned away quickly when he saw that she noticed. But it made Ellie stare after him in surprise.
Why should Jeff Purdy care if she chose to study the windows of Darkwater Mill?
3
THE BOAT IN THE SHADOWS
IF ONLY there were someone she could talk to about the sound she had heard in the mill and about Jeff Purdy’s queer behavior! The girls at school were like strangers to Ellie. She certainly couldn’t confide in them. She realized with an odd, alarmed beat of her heart that she couldn’t confide in Tony, either. Not about this. He didn’t want her to wonder about it or try to find out.
She would have to fall back on Hank Littlefield, that was all. Hank lived across the river from the Pride mansion. When Ellie and Tony used to come home from Harris Hill School, in their summer vacations, he often rowed over to their back lawn to play with them. Both she and Tony had always been able to count on Hank.
He sat next to her at school now. As soon as she settled into her seat she turned to whisper to him. He bent his head toward her at the same moment and began to speak before she had a chance.
“Say, Ellie, did you know there were going to be two satellites passing overhead tonight at the same time? I’m going to watch for them. Don’t you and Tony want to see them? Iťs really going to be something!”
Ellie was so taken aback she stared at him blankly for a second or two. She had been thinking of something entirely different, and at first she hardly understood what he was whispering about. She had forgotten Hank was so crazy about planets and rockets and outer space.
At last she managed to ask, “What time will it be?”
“Eight-thirty. And listen—I’ll come over to your house and watch with you and Tony. I think we could see them better from your side of the river.”
Then the last bell rang and they had to stop talking. But Ellie was satisfied. She would have a chance to see Hank tonight. If Tony didn’t want to watch for the satellites—and he probably wouldn’t—she could tell Hank everything that had happened.
When she explained Hank’s plan at the dinner table that night, her brother shook his head. “The track team is meeting at the gym at eight o’clock and I’ve got to be there. I don’t believe I’ll get home in time to watch the satellites.”
In the light from the tall, flickering candles in the middle of the table Aunt Rachel’s face was partly shadowed, but Ellie saw the quick, disturbed glance she cast at Tony, and the troubled frown that settled on her face afterward. Was she worried about him, more than anyone realized? Did she know more than he thought she did about how often he was away from home in the evenings?
Ellie was glad to escape to her own room when dinner was over and the dishes were done. At quarter-past eight she put on her warm jacket and ran outdoors to wait for Hank. He pedaled into the yard on his bicycle just as she was stepping off the porch.
“I thought you’d row over,” she said in surprise.
“Heck, no. My boat is pulled up for the winter,” he said. “Let’s go down on the riverbank, though. Thaťs the best place to watch from.”
Long ago Grandfather Pride had built a circular bench around an apple tree on the bank. They picked their way toward it over the dark lawn and settled down to wait for the appearance of the satellites.
“Where’s Tony?” Hank asked.
Ellie explained about him and then seized the chance to tell Hank about the strange sound she had heard in the mill. “There wasn’t a broken window anywhere, so it couldn’t have been the wind that made that door slam,” she finished excitedly.
“Gee, Ellie—somebody must have been in there,” he exclaimed. “I wonder what he was doing?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know. I’ve been wondering about it all day. Hank, do you know Jeff Purdy?”
“Of course. Whaťs he got to do with it?”
She told him how strangely Jeff had acted that morning. “He tried to make me think he didn’t care whether I looked at the windows of the mill, or what I did. But when he looked back, I could tell he was worried. Do you think—maybe—he knows something about it?”
Hank squirmed uneasily on the bench.
“I don’t know. Of course—Jeff’s father used to have a good job at the mill—he was a foreman, I think. His grandfather worked there too. They were lots better off when the mill was open. Probably they don’t like your aunt very well. But that’s nothing—half the town feels that way.”
“I know.”
There was an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes while they studied the dark, star-sprinkled sky and listened to the ripple of the river.
Hank bent forward, suddenly, and clasped his arms across his stomach. “O-ooh, but I’m hungry,” he groaned.
“Hungry,” Ellie echoed, staring at him as if he had gone crazy. “What’s the matter? Didn’t you have your dinner?”
“I had space rations. I shouldn’t really need anything more, but gee—I’m hungry.”
“What do you mean—space rations?” she demanded.
“Oh, you know—pills, and tablets and stuff that men eat when they travel in a space ship and can’t carry a lot of supplies.”
Ellie’s voice was skeptical. “Huh. Where would you get pills like that?”
“Well, maybe I didn’t have real space rations,” he admitted defensively, “but I made up my own. I had a bouillon cube and three vitamin pills and some powdered milk. It should have been enough, but it didn’t fill me up.”
Ellie bent
