Page 102 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade6_Flipbook

aCTIvITy 1.15
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70 Greg wet his lips, put his hands to his mouth and tried to make a sound. Nothing came out. He swallowed hard, wet his lips once more and howled as evenly as he could.
71 “What’s that?”
72 As Greg howled, the light moved away from Lemon Brown, but not before Greg
saw him hurl his body down the stairs at the men who had come to take his treasure. There was a crashing noise, and then footsteps. A rush of warm air came in as the downstairs door opened, then there was only an ominous silence. Greg stood on the landing. He listened, and after a while there was another sound on the staircase.
73 “Mr. Brown?” he called.
74 “Yeah, it’s me,” came the answer. “I got their flashlight.” my Notes
75 Greg exhaled in relief as Lemon Brown made his way slowly back up the stairs.
76 “You OK?”
77 “Few bumps and bruises,” Lemon Brown said.
78 “I think I’d better be going,” Greg said, his breath returning to normal. “You’d better
leave, too, before they come back.”
79 “They may hang around for a while,” Lemon Brown said, “but they ain’t getting their nerve up to come in here again. Not with crazy rag men and howling spooks. Best you stay a while till the coast is clear. I’m heading out west tomorrow, out to East St. Louis.”
80 “They were talking about treasures,” Greg said. “You really have a treasure?”
81 “What I tell you? Didn’t I tell you every man got a treasure?” Lemon Brown said.
“You want to see mine?”
82 “If you want to show it to me,” Greg shrugged.
83 “Let’s look out the window first, see what them scoundrels be doing,” Lemon Brown said.
84 They followed the oval beam of the flashlight into one of the rooms and looked out
the window. They saw the men who had tried to take the treasure sitting on the curb near the corner. One of them had his pants leg up, looking at his knee.
85 “You sure you’re not hurt?” Greg asked Lemon Brown.
86 “Nothing that ain’t been hurt before,” Lemon Brown said. “When you get as old as
me all you say when something hurts is, ‘Howdy, Mr. Pain, sees you back again.’ Then when Mr. Pain see he can’t worry you none, he go on mess with somebody else.”
87 Greg smiled.
88 “Here, you hold this.” Lemon Brown gave Greg the flashlight.
89 He sat on the floor near Greg and carefully untied the strings that held the rags
on his right leg. When he took the rags away, Greg saw a piece of plastic. The old man carefully took off the plastic and unfolded it. He revealed some yellowed newspaper clippings and a battered harmonica.
90 “There it be,” he said, nodding his head. “There it be.”
91 Greg looked at the old man, saw the distant look in his eye, then turned to the
clippings. They told of Sweet Lemon Brown, a blues singer and harmonica player who was appearing at different theaters in the South. One of the clippings said he had been the hit of the show, although not the headliner. All of the clippings were reviews of shows Lemon Brown had been in more than fifty years ago. Greg looked at the harmonica. It was dented badly on one side, with the reed holes on one end nearly closed.
Unit 1 • Stories of Change 75
ominous: showing that something bad will happen
curb: raised cement border on the edge of a street
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