Eve Bunting - Gleam and Glow

Gleam and Glow

Written by
EVE BUNTING

Illustrated by
PETER SYLVADA

HARCOURT, INC.
Orlando Austin New York San Diego Toronto London

Special thanks to James B. Stewart, assistant headmaster at The Gillispie School in La Jolla, California,
and to Allyn JohnstonE. B.

Text copyright 2001 by Eve Bunting
Illustrations copyright 2001 by Peter Sylvada

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be submitted online at
www.harcourt.com/contact or mailed to the following address: Permissions Department, Harcourt, Inc.,
6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

Photo credit: Michele Clement (illustration on page 5)

www.HarcourtBooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bunting, Eve, 1928
Gleam and Glow/written by Eve Bunting; illustrated by Peter Sylvada.
p. cm.
Summary: After his home is destroyed by war, eight-year-old Viktor finds hope in the survival
of two very special fish.
[1. WarFiction. 2. FishesFiction.] I. Sylvada, Peter, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.B91527GI 2001
[E]dc21 00-10005
ISBN 978-0-15-202596-0

P O N M L K J I H

Printed in Singapore

The illustrations in this book were done in oils.
The display type was hand-lettered by Georgia Deaver.
The text type was set in Quadraat.
Color separations by Bright Arts Ltd., China
Printed and bound by Tien Wah Press, Singapore
Production supervision by Sandra Grebenar and Pascha Gerlinger
Designed by Judythe Sieck

For Dr. Andrea KarlinE. B.

For PonchoP. S.

When Papa left to join the underground, Marina cried. To be truthful, Mama and I cried, too.

"I don't want Papa to be underground," Marina sobbed.

"Shh, little one," Mama said. "It just means he's fighting secretly with many of our men. On top of the ground."

I gave Marina a pitying glance. She's only five and doesn't know much. I'm eight, and I know a lot.

Before he left, Papa had tried to explain things to Marina.

"Why don't those people like us?" she'd asked.

I didn't know why, either, but I rolled my eyes and pretended I did.

"We're different from them," Papa told her. "They think this is their country and they don't want us living here. But this is our country. I will fight with the Liberation Army to stop them from pushing us out of our own land." He put his hand on my shoulder. "Viktor, you are the man of the house now. Be a strong help to your mother."

And then he was gone.

"I'll be back," he'd said. But I worried. What if he came back, and we weren't here?

Mama said we would have to leave soon. It was getting too dangerous to stay much longer. Our enemies were coming, sweeping through villages like great brooms, forcing people out and burning their homes.

Every day we heard distant gunshots and saw smoke rise into the faraway skies.

Every day strangers stopped on their way out of the country to put down their bundles, to share our food, to take shelter under our roof. They told terrible stories of how it had been for them and their neighbors when the soldiers came. They cried as they talked. Their eyes went this way and that, as if they thought the soldiers were just outside on our doorstep.

When their stories got too terrible, Mama sent Marina and me to the pond for fresh water or to the vegetable patch to look for hidden potatoes.

But we heard a lot anyway.

Marina started to suck her thumb again, and I wet the bed three nights in a row.

Mama held me close. "It's all right, Viktor. There is no harm done."

One day a family came on a tractor. They had a boy my age named Alexsa and a dog who could do tricks. Alexsa liked showing him off.

"My father is in the underground," I told him, and I felt proud. Having a father in the underground was better than having a dog who could do tricks.

I watched them leave the next morning. We don't have a tractor. I knew that when we left, we would have to walk.

A few days later a man came. His heavy bag was strapped on his back, and he was carrying a bowl with water and two fish in it. He put the bowl on our table, and it seemed to me that all the light of the world was trapped inside that glass bowl.

"I can't carry them farther," he said. "Will you keep them? They are very wondrous fish."

Mama shook her head. "We are leaving ourselves in a day or two."

Marina jumped up and down. "Please, Mama! Aren't they pretty? I've just thought up their names. Gleam and Glow."

The man sighed. "Let them stay behind when you go, then. An extra day or two of life is as important to a fish as it is to us. Here is their food." He gave Marina a twist of paper. "Sprinkle a little on top of the water each day."

"I will," Marina promised.

For two days she fed them and talked to them and even tried to pet them with her finger.

"I love Gleam and Glow," she told Mama. "I love them with all my heart."

Three days later Mama said we could wait no longer. "I wanted to stay till it got warmer," she said softly, as if to herself. "The cold will be hard on the little one." I knew she was remembering the pneumonia Marina had last year.

"We will leave tomorrow early," she said to us. "We must make it to the border and the safe country beyond."

"Is it far to walk?" I asked, wishing for a tractor.

"It is. But we will get there."

"Please, please, can we take Gleam and Glow?" Marina begged. "I'll carry them."

"You couldn't, Marina," Mama said. "We will have to leave them. But think, we may be able to find your father. Won't that be good?"

I thought maybe she was just trying to give us hope, but even the goodness of that hope didn't comfort Marina. She slept with Mama that night, and I heard her sobbing for a long time before it was quiet and I knew she was asleep.

I lay looking around my room, putting it in my memory. My books on the shelves Papa made for me. The painting I had done that Mama had framed. I thought about how hard it would be for Marina to leave her fish.

When the clock struck midnight I got up, carried the fishbowl outside to our pond, and slipped Gleam and Glow into the water. They flashed into the tangled weeds at the edge of the pond. I sprinkled what was left of their food on the water. "One or two extra days of life," I whispered. "Good luck."