Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'Engle

make Mother and Daddy stop me from going to Antarctica. The warnings, rather than frightening me off, made me all the more determined to go.
    At bedtime I looked at the collection of letters and cards I had in my copy of Hamlet . I wasn’t sorry I’d talked to John, but I didn’t want to show any of this to my parents.
    The night before John left for college, he asked me.
    I shook my head. “Not yet.”
    â€œI think you should.”
    â€œI know. I will, if anything else happens.”
    â€œThis isn’t enough?”
    â€œNothing goes together. It’s like a picture puzzle with not
enough pieces. I need more pieces before—before I know anything. Don’t say anything, John, please.”
    â€œIt’s against my better judgment.”
    â€œBut please don’t.”
    â€œOkay. But let me know if anything else happens, if you get any more cards. Or anything. Anything.”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œPromise?”
    â€œPromise.”
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    The first day of school after the Christmas holidays, Cook was waiting for me when I got off the school bus. He had a string bag full of vegetables and another with a couple of long loaves of bread. He greeted me, saying, “It’s such a pleasant day I thought I’d walk home from marketing, and my route takes me right past your stop.”
    There’d been nothing more in my locker at school. I wanted to forget those cards. I wanted to forget John’s suspicions of Cook. Nothing I knew about Cook made it seem possible to me that he would write threatening cards and stick them in my locker. How could he do it without someone seeing him, anyhow? Regional’s a big school, but not so big that someone strange could come to the locker room without being noticed.
    Cook said, “Something on your mind?”
    â€œI’ve got a lot of homework,” I said, “but it seems silly to do it when we’ll be leaving so soon.”
    â€œIt’s not a bad discipline to get it done.”
    He was walking along calmly, swinging his string bags.
The thought came to me that he was the one I should have shown Adam II’s letter to, rather than John, but maybe that was because I didn’t want to face John’s suspicions.
    I went to the attic and opened Adam II’s journal.

    I know that some explorers have had to eat penguins. The seals, particularly the leopard seals, grab them and slam them against the water with such force that they skin them, and the empty skins wash up on shore, where it is so dry that the flattened corpses last indefinitely. Cookie is not a vegetarian, but I think we’d have to be starving before he’d cook a penguin. He is one of the most gentle people I have ever known, and his quiet presence keeps the rest of us from bickering or even quarreling, which we might well do, shut up day after day in this small, cramped space. I believe that it is entirely thanks to his presence that we are so amiable, and that we have so much fun. Laughter in this pervading cold helps keep us warm.

    This was the Cook Adam II showed me in everything he wrote, not the person John had suggested might have put those threatening cards in my locker.
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    I had one last meal with Aunt Serena and it was probably the most elegant meal I’d ever had. We started off with caviar, and I wasn’t at all sure I was going to like it, but I did. We spread it on Melba toast with finely chopped onion and egg and it was odd and delicious. It was followed by a very light French sorrel soup, and then chicken breasts stuffed with
arugula and Jarlsberg cheese—Cook was really providing a farewell banquet.
    We had a split of champagne. “I checked with your father,” Aunt Serena said, “and he assured me that you were quite capable of managing one glass of champagne. A toast, my dear, to you and to Cook and to Adam and to the Antarctic.” She raised her glass.
    One thing I couldn’t do was say