A Season of Gifts
Authors: Richard Peck
One evening we were just settling around the supper table. There were some slices of ham from somewhere. Mother had pulled together a potato salad out of three potatoes. We’d just joined hands. Dad began, “For what we are about to receive—”
When an almighty explosion rocked the room. Our kitchen clock stopped, and the box of matches jumped off the stove. Every nesting bird in the county took flight.
Russians
, we thought, and without a Civil Defense bomb shelter for miles. Another explosion erupted and bounced off every house from here to the grain elevator.
Ruth Ann slid off her chair and was at the kitchen door. We all followed. Now Mrs. Dowdel, gray in the gloaming, loomed out from around her cobhouse. In one of her hands hung a double-barreled shotgun, an old-time Winchester 21, from the look of it. Both barrels smoked.
In her other fist she carried a pair of headless rats. They hung by their tails, and they were good-sized, almost cat-sized.
She lumbered up to her cauldron and swung the rats onto the white embers beneath. As a family, we turned away just as they burst into flame.
N
OVELS FOR
Y
OUNG
A
DULTS
Amanda/Miranda
Are You in the House Alone?
Bel-Air Bambi and the Mall Rats
Blossom Culp and the Sleep of Death
Close Enough to Touch
Don’t Look and It Won’t Hurt
The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp
Dreamland Lake
Fair Weather
Father Figure
The Ghost Belonged to Me
Ghosts I Have Been
The Great Interactive Dream Machine
Here Lies the Librarian
The Last Safe Place on Earth
A Long Way from Chicago
Lost in Cyberspace
On the Wings of Heroes
Princess Ashley
Remembering the Good Times
Representing Super Doll
The River Between Us
Secrets of the Shopping Mall
Strays Like Us
The Teacher’s Funeral
Those Summer Girls I Never Met
Through a Brief Darkness
Unfinished Portrait of Jessica
Voices After Midnight
A Year Down Yonder
N
OVELS FOR
A
DULTS
Amanda/Miranda
London Holiday
New York Time
This Family of Women
S
HORT
S
TORIES
Past Perfect, Present Tense
P
ICTURE
B
OOK
Monster Night at Grandma’s House
N
ONFICTION
Anonymously Yours
Invitations to the World
RICHARD PECK
A Season of Gifts
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by The Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa • Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Peck • Art © 2009 by Brandon Dorman
All rights reserved
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Peck, Richard, date.
A season of gifts / Richard Peck.
p. cm.
A companion novel to A long way from Chicago and A year down yonder. Summary: Relates the surprising gifts bestowed on twelve-year-old Bob Barnhart and his family, who have recently moved to a small Illinois town in 1958, by their larger-than-life neighbor, Mrs. Dowdel.
ISBN: 978-1-101-66442-1
[1. Neighbors—Fiction. 2. Moving, Household—Fiction. 3. Illinois—History—20th century—Fiction. 4. Humorous stories.] 1. Title.
PZ7.P338Sd 2009
[Fic]—dc22
2008048050
Version_1
for Maryann and George MacDonald
12. C
OME
, Y
E
T
HANKFUL
P
EOPLE
, C
OME
14. S
EASON OF
S
ECRETS AND
S
URPRISES
Discussion Guide for A Season of Gifts
A NOTE FROM AUTHOR RICHARD PECK
Excerpt from A LONG WAY FROM CHICAGO
