Strange Worlds [Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children] Enoch O'Connor

six

CHAPTER SIX
EMERSON

We quickly ripped away the rest of the paper as we gave a look of curiosity and excitement on what our grandfather would've left for us. What we had found was not something I was expecting, but I had to give Grandpa Portman some credit for an informative piece that looked worn although cared for.

It was a hard covered book that was dog-eared and missing the old dust jacket -that was most likely thrown away in the madness of cleaning up Grandpa Portman's home. It was The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The book I let Jacob hold trembled about in his wavering hands. We both tried to comprehend how the book had ended up as a sixteenth birthday present. My head spun with the final words of Grandpa Portman.

Emerson.

We gave each other a weird look, I mouthed the word in question to Jacob, but he also seemed at a loss for words. We ended up moving our line of sight to our aunt, a question spread across our face, but neither of us knew exactly how to ask or word it without sounding completely crazy.

"I found it in your grandfather's desk when we were cleaning out the house. He wrote your names on the front. I think he meant for you two to have it."

I almost gasped and held my heart at her words. I knew Jacob felt the same as he knew if it were our father or mother who had found the book, they would've burnt it with the rest of the stuff they weren't keeping. The 'junk' they called it. Bless her kind soul.

"Neat, I didn't know your grandfather was a reader," mum said as she tried to lighten the mood with her half drunken slur. "That was thoughtful."

"Yes," said Dad with a scowl. I looked at him with disgust, and with one look to me, his frown fell and was replaced with clenched teeth, "Thank you, Susan."

Upon opening the book, sure enough, aunt Susan was right, and the total front page had an inscription of our grandfather's shaky handwriting.

THE
SELECTED WORKS
OF RALPH WALDO
EMERSON
Edited and with an introduction
BY CLIFTON DURRELL, PH. D.