A Summer to Die. Lois Lowry

showed him the cupboard floor, where William is carved into the pine.

      “Will Banks is a fascinating man,” Dad said, leaning back in his scruffy leather chair in front of the typewriter. He was having a cup of coffee, and I had tea. It was the first time I had visited him in the little room, and he seemed glad to have company. “You know, he’s well educated, and he’s a master cabinet-maker. He could have earned a fortune in Boston, or New York, but he wouldn’t leave this land. People round here think he’s a little crazy. But I don’t know, I don’t know.”

      “He’s not crazy, Dad. He’s nice. But it’s too bad he has to live in that teeny house, when he owns both these bigger ones that were his family’s.”

      “Well, he’s happy there, Meg, and you can’t argue with happiness. Problem is, there’s a nephew in Boston who’s going to make trouble for Will, I’m afraid.”

      “What do you mean? How can anyone make trouble for an old man who isn’t bothering anybody?”

      “I’m not sure. I wish I knew more about law. Seems the nephew is the only relative he has. Will owns all this land, and the houses – they were left to him – but when he dies, they’ll go to this nephew, his sister’s son. It’s valuable property. They may not look like much to you, Meg, but these houses are real antiques, the kind of things that a lot of people from big cities would like to buy. The nephew, apparently, would like to have Will declared what the law calls ‘incompetent’ – which just means crazy. If he could do that, he’d have control over the property. He’d like to sell it to some people who want to build cottages for tourists, and to turn the big house into an inn.”

      I stood up and looked out of the window, across the field, to where the empty house was standing grey against the whiteness, with its brick chimney tall and straight against the sharp line of the roof. I imagined cute little blue shutters on the windows, and a sign over the door that said “All Major Credit Cards Accepted”. I envisioned a car park, filled with cars and caravans from different states.

      “They can’t do that, Dad,” I said. Then it turned into a question. “Can they?”

      My father shrugged. “I didn’t think so. But last week the nephew phoned me, and asked if it were true, what he had heard, that the people in the village call Will ‘Loony Willie’.”

      “‘Loony Willie’? What did you say to him?”

      “I told him I’d never heard anything so ridiculous in my life, and to stop bothering me, because I was busy writing a book that was going to change the whole history of literature.”

      That creased us both up. The book that was going to change the whole history of literature was lying in stacks all over my father’s desk, on the floor, in at least a hundred crumpled sheets of typing paper in the big waste paper basket, and in two pages that he had made into paper aeroplanes and sailed across the room. We laughed and laughed.

      When I was able to stop laughing, I remembered something that I had wanted to tell my father. “You know, last month, when I visited Will, I took his picture.”

      “Mmmmm?”

      “He was sitting in his kitchen, smoking his pipe and looking out of the window, and talking. I shot a whole roll. And you know, Dad, his eyes are so bright, and his face is so alive, so full of memories and thoughts. He’s interested in everything. I thought of that when you said Loony Willie.”

      “Could I see the pictures?”

      I felt a little silly. “Well, I haven’t been able to develop them yet, Dad. I can’t use the darkroom at school because I have to catch the early bus to get home. It’s just that I remember his face looking like that when I photographed him.”

      My father sat up straight in his chair very suddenly. “Meg,” he said, “I have a great idea!” He sounded like a little boy. Once Mum told Molly and me that she didn’t mind not having sons, because often Dad is like a little boy, and now I could see exactly what she meant. He looked as if he were ten years old, on a Saturday morning, with an exciting and probably impossible project in mind.