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- Herausgeber: Gemma Open Door for Literacy
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Serie: The Yellow House Stories
- Sprache: Englisch
Yusef, now called Joe, his American wife, Brita, and their two boys are just starting to make friends in their new neighborhood. War in Syria has driven Joe from his home. His family is looking forward to a quiet life on Summer Street when a call from across the world changes everything. Soon, Joe's nephew Rashid, who lost his own father in the conflict, comes to live with them. Although he had a rough time escaping the civil war, Rashid is a hopeful young man with an easy smile and lots of energy. Unfortunately, where Rashid goes, trouble often follows. The Yellow House Stories follow daily life on Summer Street, an American neighborhood where cultures meet, challenges emerge, and people learn how to live together.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Alice Savage
The Yellow House on Summer Street
Alice Savage grew up in a theatrical family and began writing plays and stories in the fifth grade. As an English teacher of adult learners, she combines creative writing with a deep awareness of language to illuminate the worlds of immigrants and cultural explorers. She credits her multicultural family as inspiration. An author on many course books for Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Pearson, and others, Alice has presented widely on the role of drama in language learning. She has published several award-winning one-act plays. Her dramatic fiction shows what happens when characters address challenges for which they may or may not be prepared. Alice lives and teaches in Houston, Texas.
First published by Gemma in 2024.
www.gemmamedia.org
©2024 by Alice Savage
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Printed in the United States of America
978-1-956476-33-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data available.
Cover by Laura Shaw Design
Named after the brightest star in the Northern Crown, Gemma is a nonprofit organization that helps new readers acquire English language literacy skills with relevant, engaging books, eBooks, and audiobooks. Always original, never adapted, these stories introduce adults and young adults to the life-changing power of reading.
Open Door
To my ever-expanding multicultural family
Table of Contents
1. Houston 1
2. Jordan 7
3. The Call 15
4. Friends 22
5. One Suitcase 30
6. Tilly 39
7. Winter Street 44
8. A Long Night 51
9. The River 58
10. Arabic Music 67
11. A Fall 74
12. A Party 79
13. Two Houses 85
14. The Truth 89
1. Houston
Joe parks in front of a small yellow house. He takes a deep breath and turns to his wife, Brita. “Are you sure about this?”
Brita smiles. “I don’t know, Joe. Let’s ask the kids.” She turns to the back seat where Kyle, who is five, and Ethan, two and a half, are sitting. “Your dad is worried. He thinks maybe we bought the wrong house. What do you think? Should we give it back?”
“No!” They both shout. They do not like looking at houses. They like this house. The yard is big. It goes all the way around the house, and there are trees.
“Okay, okay.” Joe turns off the car and opens the door. The movers are already in the driveway. Before he gets out, Brita puts her hand on his arm.
“This is the right house, Joe.” She smiles. “We’re going to raise our kids here.”
“I know,” Joe says. “I just worry. I don’t want anything to go wrong.”
Joe’s real name is Yusef. He is from Syria, but he has been in the US a long time, and people call him Joe. Joe is able to change his name, but he cannot stop worrying. He is always a little more nervous than his American wife.
Joe watches Brita take the boys into the yard. Then she walks over to three movers standing next to their truck. He likes Brita’s confidence. If she says everything is going to be fine, maybe it will be.
Joe moves boxes out of the car while Brita unlocks the door and directs the movers. The boys follow a white cat to the backyard. They do not return, so Joe goes to check on them. He finds them under a tree. They are planning to build a tree house.
Joe says, “Okay. Which tree?”
Kyle starts looking at the different trees. Ethan looks up and laughs. He points to a pair of squirrels in one of the trees. The little animals are chasing each other and making noise.
“Squirrels!” says Joe.
“Quir!” says Ethan.
Joe does not know it, but behind the tree and the squirrels, someone is watching them. There is a big house next door. An old woman is looking out her upstairs window. She frowns. She does not like little boys, and the man seems foreign.
The old woman turns to a small dog. “Tilly,” she says. “This can’t be good.”
The dog looks at the woman with big brown eyes. The old woman shakes her head. “No, it’s not good.” She turns back to the window. “If those boys make trouble, they’ll be sorry.”
Suddenly, Ethan looks up. He sees the woman, and he smiles. The woman does not smile back. She leaves the window.
Joe sees Ethan’s smile. He looks at the window, but he does not see anyone. Joe looks at Ethan. Ethan runs away. Then he falls. Joe runs after him. He picks up his crying son and holds him.
The movers finish their work, and Brita pays them. Then she brings drinks for Joe and the boys. The family sits on the porch. Joe and Kyle tell her about their plans for the tree house. Little Ethan says, “Quir.”
“Quir?” asks Brita.
“Squirrels,” says Joe. “The trees are full of squirrels.”
“Fun!” says Brita. “I like this house.”
“Me, too,” says Kyle. “But I miss my friends.”
“You’ll make new friends,” says Brita.
“I hope so,” says Kyle.
Kyle does not know it, but someone is listening. Down the street, a boy named Teddy is in front of a white house with blue windows. Teddy hears Kyle’s voice. He runs inside and tells his mother. “There’s a boy.”
Dolores looks out the window. “A boy? Where?”
“Down the street, in the yellow house.”
“That’s great, Teddy! Maybe you can make a new friend.”
“Maybe,” says Teddy. “Do you think he likes trucks or trains?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“I guess not,” says Teddy. “But I have both, just in case.”
“Wonderful,” says Dolores. “I can’t wait to meet them!”
Other neighbors are also watching the movers. They ask themselves the same question. What will this new family bring to Summer Street?
2. Jordan
