A Long Way From Chicago

Authors: Richard Peck

Later, much later, we heard something. . . .

We heard a little sawing, singing sound as a file began to slice through screen wire. From the settee Mary Alice made some tiny, terrified sound. Grandma reached down for something in her sewing basket. The darkness made me see pinwheels like sparklers. I just managed to notice Grandma’s rocker was rocking and she wasn’t in it. She was standing over me. “Keep just behind me,” she whispered.

I followed her across the room to the kitchen. You wouldn’t believe a woman that heavy could be so light on her feet. She floated, and we moved like some strange beast, big in front, small behind. Now we were by the door to the kitchen, and I heard the scuffle of heavy feet in there on the crinkly linoleum. . . .

“Part vaudeville act, part laconic tall tale, the stories, with their dirty tricks and cunning plots, make you laugh out loud at the farce and snicker at the reversals. Like Grandma, the characters are larger-than-life funny, yet Peck is neither condescending nor picturesque. With the tall talk, irony, insult, and vulgarity, there’s also a heartfelt sense of the Depression’s time and place. . . . Many readers will recognize the irreverent, contrary voices of their own family legends across generations.”

—
Booklist
, starred review

“Each tale is a small masterpiece of storytelling.”

—
The Horn Book
, starred review

The 1999 Newbery Honor Book

Also by Richard Peck

N
OVELS FOR
Y
OUNG
A
DULTS

Amanda/Miranda

Are You in the House Alone?

Bel-Air Bambi and the Mall Rats

Blossom Culp and the Sleep of Death

Close Enough to Touch

Don’t Look and It Won’t Hurt

The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp

Dreamland Lake

Fair Weather

Father Figure

The Ghost Belonged to Me

Ghosts I Have Been

The Great Interactive Dream Machine

Here Lies the Librarian

The Last Safe Place on Earth

A Long Way from Chicago

Lost in Cyberspace

On the Wings of Heroes

Princess Ashley

Remembering the Good Times

Representing Super Doll

The River Between Us

Secrets of the Shopping Mall

Strays Like Us

The Teacher’s Funeral

Those Summer Girls I Never Met

Three Quarters Dead

Through a Brief Darkness

Unfinished Portrait of Jessica

Voices After Midnight

A Year Down Yonder

N
OVELS FOR
A
DULTS

Amanda/Miranda

London Holiday

New York Time

This Family of Women

S
HORT
S
TORIES

Past Perfect, Present Tense

P
ICTURE
B
OOK

Monster Night at Grandma’s House

N
ONFICTION

Anonymously Yours

Invitations to the World

PUFFIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in the United States of America by Dial Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 1998

Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2000

This edition published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2011

Chapter 1
, “Shotgun Cheatham’s Last Night Above Ground,” first appeared in
Twelve Shots: Stories About Guns
edited by Harry Mazer, Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers. Copyright © Richard Peck, 1997.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE DIAL EDITION AS FOLLOWS
:

Peck, Richard, date.

A long way from Chicago: a novel in stories / by Richard Peck.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother.

ISBN: 978-1-101-66436-0

[1. Grandmothers—Fiction. 2. Depressions—1929– —Fiction.

3. Country Life—Fiction. 4. Illinois—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.P338Li 1998 [Fic]—DC21 98-10953 CIP AC

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

For Judy and David Everson
and to remember James Jones

Contents