'Must reads,' Part 2

1. A wooden staircase leads from the downstairs passage to the next floor. There is a small landing at the top. There is a door at each end of the landing, the left one leading to a storeroom at the front of the house and to the attics. One of those really steep Dutch staircases runs from the side to the other door opening on the street. The right-hand door leads to our "Secret Annexe." No one would ever guess that there would be so many rooms hidden behind that plain gray door.

2. Frankie stood looking into the sky. For when the old question came to her - the who she was and what she would be in the world, and why she was standing there that minute - ... she did not feel hurt and unanswered. At last she knew just who she was and understood where she was going. She loved her brother and the bride and she was a member of the wedding. The three of them would go into the world....

3. Sometimes, having had a surfeit of human society and gossip, and worn out all my village friends, I rambled still further westward than I habitually dwell, into yet more unfrequented parts of the town, "to fresh woods and pastures new," or while the sun was setting, made my supper of huckleberries and blueberries on Fair Haven Hill, and laid up a store for several days.

4. Piggy handed Ralph his glasses.... The wood was damp; and this was the third time they had lighted it. Ralph stood back, speaking to himself. "We don't want another night without fire." He looked round guiltily at the three boys standing by. This was the first time he had admitted the double function of the fire. Certainly one was to send up a beckoning column of smoke; but the other was to be a hearth now and a comfort until they slept.

ANSWERS

(1) 'The Diary of a Young Girl,' by Anne Frank (1952); (2) 'The Member of the Wedding,' by Carson McCullers (1946); (3) 'Walden,' by Henry David Thoreau (1854); (4) 'Lord of the Flies,' by William Golding (1954).

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Publishing Society