Amen McBee, the youngest of five sisters, gobbles up words the way other children gobble up sweets.  She couldn't be more different from her elder twin sisters Arabella and Annabella-called the Bellas.  The mischievous Bellas constantly frighten Amen with stories of Mr. Tominski-the old recluse who lives in the woods nearby and mysteriously tends to a flock of doves.  The Bellas insist that Mr. Tominski is a dangerous bogeyman who eats children whole, but Papa vows that the "keeper of the doves" wouldn't hurt a soul.  When tragedy strikes the family Amen must decide once and for all who is right. "Byars has a gift for writing dialgue, and here she uses a spare, almost poetic style to craft an accessible story that grapples with life-altering issues." Betsy Byars began her writing career rather late in life. "In all of my school years, . . . not one single teacher ever said to me, 'Perhaps you should consider becoming a writer,'" Byars recalls. "Anyway, I didn't want to be a writer. Writing seemed boring. You sat in a room all day by yourself and typed. If I was going to be a writer at all, I was going to be a foreign correspondent like Claudette Colbert in Arise My Love . I would wear smashing hats, wisecrack with the guys, and have a byline known round the world. My father wanted me to be a mathematician." So Byars set out to become mathematician, but when she couldn't grasp calculus in college, she turned to English. Even then, writing was not on her immediate horizon. First, she married and started a family. The writing career didn't emerge until she was 28, a mother of two children, and living in a small place she called the barracks apartment, in Urbana, Illinois. She and her husband, Ed, had moved there in 1956 so he could attend graduate school at the University of Illinois. She was bored, had no friends, and so turned to writing to fill her time. Byars started writing articles for The Saturday Evening Post , Look ,and other magazines. As her family grew and her children started to read, she began to write books for young people and, fortunately for her readers, discovered that there was more to being a writer than sitting in front of a typewriter. "Making up stories and characters is so interesting that I'm never bored. Each book has been a different writing experience. It takes me about a year to write a book, but I spend another year thinking about it, polishing it, and making improvements. I always put something of myself intomy books -- something that happened to me. Once a wanderer came by my house and showed me how to brush my teeth with a cherry twig; that went in The House of Wingscopyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved. chapter one A for Amen "Another girl? Not another girl? Don’t tell me I’ve got another daughter!" These were the first words my father spoke after I was born. Of course I was just minutes old—way too little to remember—but I have heard the story so often that I really think it is my memory. It was a hot summer evening, 1891, and thunder could be heard as a storm rolled in from the west. Papa’s voice was very loud—especially when he was upset. The words certainly would have come through the door to Mama’s room, rivaling the thunder for attention. "She’s a fine, healthy girl," Grandmama said. It was she who had brought the bad news. "Be grateful, Albert." Papa seemed not to hear her. He looked up at the ceiling. "What’s left?" He dropped his hands to his sides in a gesture of hopelessness. "We’ve got Abigail! Augusta! Arabella! Annabella!" My father, in his despair, said the names so loudly that my sisters, thinking they had been summoned, rushed into the hall in their nightclothes. "You have a sister," he said. "A sister?" In my memory they were disappointed as well. "Yes!" "What’s her name?" Abigail asked. As the oldest, she spoke for all of them. "I’m thinking." My father had insisted that his children’s names all begin with an A. "When I have used up all the beautiful A names, I will move on to B," was his explanation. "There’s nothing left," he said. "Does this mean you will go on to the Bs?" Abigail asked. I waited in my blanket for my fate. It came, but I was too little to know how I was doomed. "Amen!" my father pronounced. There was a silence. "Papa, that’s not a name," Abigail said, "That’s something you say at the end of a prayer." "It is the end of a prayer—a prayer for a son. Amen!" "Albert," Grandmama said, "you’re upset. Think about it and—" "Amen!" My father ran down the stairs. "Albert," Grandmama called after him, "the storm!" He slammed the screen door as he left the house, driven by his own inner storm. In her room, my mother kissed my brow. She whispered, "We’ll call you Amie," in a soothing way. But in the family Bible—where it counts—it says: Born July 11, 1891, a daughter—Amen McBee.   chapter two The Bellas and the Parts of a Dog   "Bellas! Bellas! Are you looking after your sister?" "Yes, Aunt Pauline," the