Read Alma for Free Online Page B

made her glad. She read on. RR Hawkins had moved with her parents to London, England, when she was twelve. Later, she went to Cambridge University and took her degree in ancient and medieval history. Alma got up and walked to the wooden stand where the big Webster’s Dictionary rested, to look up “medieval.” “Of, or imitating the Middle Ages,” she read, sighing as she crossed tothe stacks and took down the M volume of an encyclopedia. “The period between A.D. 400 and A.D. 1500,” she read under “Middle Ages.”
    She returned to her chair to find her mother picking up books left there by other patrons and arranging them in order on the book cart.
    “Might as well walk home together,” Clara said.
    “Sure, Mom.”
    “How’s the research going?”
    “Great. I discovered RR Hawkins was a woman.”
    “Did you, now?”
    “At least, I think she’s a ‘was.’ Maybe she’s an ‘is.’ I haven’t found out yet. I’ll have to come back tomorrow. I can’t take the file home.”
    “No, it’s Reference,” Clara said, moving away. “We wouldn’t want to upset his highness,” she whispered, pointing toward Mr. Winters’s desk with her chin.
    Alma laughed and got back to work. She read a book review of RR’s first novel,
Circle of Doom
. The reviewer heaped compliments on the book, called RR a “major new talent” and predicted the novel, “a stunner,” would win prizes.
Circle of Doom
was quickly published in many languages. RR became a very wealthy young—
    “The library is closing.” Mr. Winters stood behind his desk.
    Alma carefully aligned the documents and placed them in the file. She retied the ribbon, giving it a sharp tug, and carried the folder to Mr. Winters.
    “Clara, if you would,” he said, passing the file to Alma’s mother, who was parking the book cart against the wall.
    She took the folder and walked through the door behind Mr. Winters’s desk. When she came back out buttoning her raincoat, she had a shopping bag on her arm.
    “Let’s go,” she said to Alma. “I’m famished.”
    Darkness had fallen and the rain had stopped. Alma and her mother strolled the short distance to the alley, which was pocked with puddles reflecting the light from nearby windows. Once home, they hung up their coats in the alcove and Alma went to the hot plate to put on the kettle.
    Clara opened her shopping bag and removed the folder on RR Hawkins. She dropped it onto the kitchen table, smiling.
    “Mom!” Alma exclaimed.
    “Do you think you can finish your reading tonight while I’m at work?” Clara asked.
    “Sure, but won’t Mr. Win—?”
    “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Clara said.
    With supper done, the dishes washed and put away, the kitchen floor swept and the tea things laid out for Clara’s return late that night, Alma sat at the table and opened the file again.
    Circle of Doom
had been followed two years later by
The Gathering Darkness
, and, two years after that,
The Rising
completed the trilogy, making RR Hawkins a very famous and wealthy woman. But things in her personal life, the little that Alma could piece together from the book reviews, weren’t going well. RR Hawkins moved away from London, on her own, and then dropped out of sight. She became a recluse. Someone wrote an article saying she had joined a convent; another referred to a failed marriage; someone else claimed she had died, a bit of hearsay contradicted when the first novel in the Alterworld series,
Into the Shadows
, came out.
    Alma was angry when she read a so-called news report that the Alterworld books had been written by someone else, under RR Hawkins’s name.
    “That’s stupid,” Alma muttered, making notes. “You can tell she wrote all the Alterworld books.”
    By the time she reached the last facts, Alma had two pages of neatly written information in point form. I didn’t find out much, she mused, but I can complete my report. Maybe I’ll ask Miss McGregor if she knows where I can