Pearlie's Pet Rescue by Lucia Masciullo Page A

the hope chest. It was big and solid. She traced the brass studs on the lid with her fingers:
R.P. 1671
. It was almost two hundred years since ‘R.P.’ had owned the chest. The leather covering was cracked and the brass had lost its shine. But the things inside it were new and pretty. They were precious. Letty had helped Lavinia sew the pillowcases and petticoats. Letty guarded the chest as if she were guarding Lavinia’s love.
    Letty’s hair blew in her eyes. It was true what Lavinia said about their house, she thought. It hadn’t been easy to keep the hope chest’s white linen away from chimney soot and little Charlie’s sticky fingers. One night, Letty had even tripped over him and burnt her hair in the lamp. Lavinia had to cut part of it off. It was so ugly.
    If I were as pretty as Lavinia, Letty thought, and people noticed me the way they notice her, maybe I would be brave and leave home too. Letty tucked the short bits of hair into her bonnet and tightened the strings.
    â€˜A-hoy there!’ a boy sang out. ‘Miss!’
    â€˜Me?’ said Letty.
    â€˜Yes, you with the blinkin’ big box.’
    Two sailors stood over Letty. ‘Is that to go on the
Duchess
?’ the older one asked. His skin was brown as wood and weathered as the jetty boards.
    Letty nodded.
    â€˜Hop off then, and we’ll take it aboard,’ he said.
    Letty looked up and down the jetty. Where were Papa and Lavinia? The sailors stood with their thumbs hooked into the rope that tied up their trousers.
    â€˜Please, not yet,’ she said.
    â€˜Now or never, miss.’ The younger one wasn’t much more than a boy, maybe fourteen, like Letty’s older brother had been when he went away to work. He had gingery hair and freckles all over his hands. His elbows poked out of holes in his shirt.
    Letty didn’t know what to say. She was afraid that if she stopped the chest going to Australia, Lavinia and Papa would both be angry with her. She got off the lid.
    The sailors lifted the chest onto their shoulders. Letty searched the dock and the shore with her eyes. She thought she could see Lavinia’s pink dress, but it was too far away.
    The sailors went up the gangplank, onto the ship. What should she do? She felt as if her boots were glued to the dock.
    â€˜Be a good child and stay right by that chest,’ Papa had said. That was what she should do. Letty dashed after it. She dodged under the arm of a man with a list and scurried onto the gangplank. The plank felt as if it was disappearing under her. Letty grabbed at the rope.
    â€˜Easy does it,’ said the young sailor, gripping her arm with his freckly fingers.
    â€˜Oh!’ Letty moved away from the sailor’s hand. She tried to stand with her feet neatly together, like a little lady, as Stepmama had taught them. But the ship’s deck felt crooked and she buckled at the knees.
    â€˜Where is the chest?’ she asked.
    The sailor pointed to the middle of the deck. ‘Goin’ in the hatch.’
    She saw passengers’ boxes being lowered on ropes, down a square hole. ‘I have to go with it,’ she told him.
    â€˜That you cannot, miss,’ he said sternly. ‘You-er not luggage. You stay put on deck.’
    â€˜Hands to the anchor line!’ someone shouted.
    The ginger-haired boy disappeared.
    Letty did as she was told. She sat as close to the hatch as she dared and watched the gangplank. A stream of passengers climbed on board. But none of them were Lavinia or Papa. Letty waited a long time. She began to worry that something had happened to them.
    Letty decided she had to move. All the luggage had gone down the hatch. The passengers were leaning over the ship’s railing, calling and waving to people on the jetty. She couldn’t see past them. She pushed into the crowd along the rails. A tall woman blocked her way.
    â€˜Excuse me. I have to find my family,’ Letty said.
    Letty