“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I think maybe.”
The house on Linden Street was the biggest house I had ever been inside.
It was old, from the 1920s, with a wide front porch and white columns and a blue front door with a brass knocker shaped like a pineapple. There was a big oak tree in the front yard and a garden
along the side with roses that had been cut back for winter.
Mrs.
Whitaker opened the door before I could knock.
She was about seventy then. Small and straight-backed, with short white hair and reading glasses
on a thin silver chain. She was wearing gray slacks and a navy cardigan with pearl buttons. She looked like a librarian, or a judge, or somebody’s very strict grandmother.She looked me up and down. I was wearing my cleanest jeans and a sweater I’d bought at the
