The End

I've been meaning to do the Charlotte's Web update. We had gotten to the last couple of chapters, and I was trying to read the end of the book to Corwin early in the day, instead of right before bed. For a whole week, we just didn't have time. Then, on Oct 2 (his birthday!), he couldn't fall asleep, and said he "needed a chapter." I tried to point out that it was late, and we could read in the morning. "No, I can't sleep without a chapter!" Okay.

I brought the book into his room, and knelt by the bed, and started a couple of paragraphs back from where we'd finished, just to refresh his memory (and to prolong the inevitable). I managed to read:

But as he was being shoved into the crate, he looked up at Charlotte

and gave her a wink. She knew he was saying good-bye in the only
way he could. And she knew her children were safe.

"Good-bye!" she whispered. Then she summoned all her

strength and waved one of her front legs at him.

I paused, and took a breath, about to read the next paragraph. And nothing came out. I smiled at Corwin, he smiled back, and I tried again. This went on for maybe a minute and a half, at which point we both started giggling, he because it was funny, and me because I couldn't talk without my voice breaking. After the laughter, I took a breath and just plowed right in:

She never moved again. Next day, as the Ferris wheel was being

taken apart and the race horses were being loaded into vans and
the entertainers were packing up their belongings and driving away in

their trailers, Charlotte died. The Fair Grounds were soon deserted. The
sheds and buildings were empty and forlorn. The infield was littered with
bottles and trash. Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the
Fair, knew that a grey spider played the most important part of all.

I got all the way to the last line, which I said at a whisper, tears welling up:

No one was with her when she died.

Corwin had turned his face away at this point, and I asked, in a choked-up voice, "Are you crying?". A sniffly little "No. Are you?" was the response. And I said "Yes! I must've read this book a hundred times, and I always cry!". He turned his face towards me, glistening with a couple of tears, and said "Can I have a kleenex?". We had a little cry about Charlotte, and a big hug, then finished the book. He keeps it in his room, because it is "the best book ever." Man, I can't wait until he's ready for Harry Potter. Maybe we'll read C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew next.