Homecoming (46 page)

But instead of getting into the boat, Gram held up the letter to Cousin Eunice and
ripped it into little pieces. She tossed the scraps into the air. The breeze took
them out and dropped them onto the dancing waves.

“I’ll have to write to her again,” Gram said, as if the idea gave her no pleasure.

“Gram,” Dicey said. Her grandmother looked down at her again. “The boat, the sailboat
in the barn. Can I fix it up and sail it? Can I have it?”

“Do you know how to sail?”

“No. But I could learn. Could you teach me?”

“Yes,” Gram said.

“Yes, what?” Dicey asked.

“Yes to both—and no more questions; not until I get my shoes off.”

Gram climbed down into the boat and held it steady against the dock while the little
children jumped in. James threw the painter down to Dicey and leaped down himself.

“Ready to go home?” Gram asked Dicey. She was smiling.

Dicey just grinned back. “Ready,” she said.

CYNTHIA VOIGT
won the Newbery Medal for
Dicey’s Song
and a Newbery Honor for
A Solitary Blue
, both part of the beloved Tillerman Cycle. She is also the author of many other celebrated
books for middle-grade and teen readers, including the Bad Girls series;
Izzy, Willy-Nilly
; and
Jackaroo
. She was awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award in 1995 for her work in literature,
and the Katahdin Award in 2003. She lives in Maine. You can visit her at
cynthiavoigt.com
.

Books by Cynthia Voigt

THE BAD GIRLS SERIES

Bad Girls

Bad, Badder, Baddest

It’s Not Easy Being Bad

Bad Girls in Love

Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do?

THE TILLERMAN SERIES

Homecoming

Dicey’s Song

A Solitary Blue

The Runner

Come a Stranger

Sons from Afar

Seventeen Against the Dealer

THE KINGDOM SERIES

Jackaroo

On Fortune’s Wheel

The Wings of a Falcon

Elske

OTHER BOOKS

Building Blocks

The Callender Papers

David and Jonathan

Izzy, Willy-Nilly

Orfe

Tell Me if the Lovers Are Losers

Tree by Leaf

The Vandemark Mummy

When She Hollers

ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people,
or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents
are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or
locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1981 by Cynthia Voigt

“Who Will Sing for Me” (Ralph Stanley, Carter Stanley) © 1963—Fort Knox Music Company

Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any
form.

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Also available in an Atheneum Books for Young Readers hardcover edition

Book design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover

The text for this book is set in Baskerville.

This Atheneum Books for Young Readers paperback edition March 2012

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Voigt, Cynthia.

Homecoming.

Summary: Abandoned by their mother, four children begin a search for a home and an
identity.

ISBN 978-0-689-30833-8

[1. Survival—Fiction. 2. Family Life—Fiction] I. Title.

PZ7.V874Ho

[Fic] 80-36723

ISBN 978-1-4424-5061-5 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-4424-2878-2 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4391-3207-4 (ebook)