How could they leave her up in the attic in the rickety brass bed, knowing that the roof might be blown right off the house and she tossed out into the wild night sky to land who knows where? How could they sleep? All day on the radio there had been hurricane warnings. Even Charles Wallace, the 'dumb baby brother,' who had an uncanny way of knowing when she was awake and unhappy, and who would come, so many nights, tiptoeing up the attic stairs to her-even Charles Wallace was asleep. Curled up on one of her pillows, a gray fluff of kitten yawned, showing its pink tongue, tucked its head under again, and went back to sleep.Įverybody was asleep. The window rattled madly in the wind, and she pulled the quilt close about her. Nothing ruffled the serenity of her expression. Gets back from where? And when? Surely her mother must know what people were saying, must be aware of the smugly vicious gossip. Only her mother could talk about him in a natural way, saying, 'When your father gets back-' I wish Father-īut it was still not possible to think about her father without the danger of tears. A delinquent, that's what I am, she thought grimly. 'Let us do the fighting when it's necessary,' they told her. Sandy and Dennys, her ten-year-old twin brothers, who got home from school an hour earlier than she did, were disgusted.

Why do you always act like such a baby?'Īnd on the way home from school, as she walked up the road with her arms full of books, one of the boys had said something about her 'dumb baby brother.' At this she'd thrown the books on the side of the road and tackled him with every ounce of strength she had, and arrived home with her blouse torn and a big bruise under one eye. If you don't manage to do a little better you'll have to stay back next year.'ĭuring lunch she'd roughhoused a little to try to make herself feel better, and one of the girls said scornfully, 'After all, Meg, we aren't grade-school kids anymore. That morning one of her teachers had said crossly, 'Really, Meg, I don't understand how a childwith parents as brilliant as yours are supposed to be can be such a poor student. She'd been dropped down to the lowest section in her grade. On top of Meg Murry doing everything wrong. She wasn't usually afraid of weather.-It's not just the weather, she thought.-It's the weather on top of everything else. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraithlike shadows that raced along the ground. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. A Wrinkle in Time: 50th Anniversary Edition

A Wrinkle in Time by Hope Larson