100 Days and 99 Nights Read Online Free PDF

middle?” After being mean and correcting her, the best I could hope for was halvsies.
    “Cool.”
    We stood atop the bars of the jungle gym barking orders to our loyal subjects, who scurried this way and that.
    “I want to have a royal ball that will be remembered forever!” Martina grandly announced.
    “A dress of gold and diamonds for your queen!
    “Bring me my magic sword!
    “Bring me my ruby crown!”
    Food, sodas, shoes, jewels, clowns, and music. We commanded and planned, ordered and laughed, imagining every last detail of the grand ball. Then as our dessert of chocolate strawberries, chocolate cake, and chocolate ice cream was being served, the end-of-recess bell rang. Balancing on the round bar, Martina rose up to give a final order. She swept her hand across her body and commanded, “To war! Follow my magic sword and defend our castle.”
    “All to battle. Defend your queen and king!” I added so enthusiastically that I lost my balance and wobbled down onto the bars, barely catching myself from falling farther.
    Across our playground kingdom, our pretend villagers and very real classmates scooped up their book bags and streamed toward the big metal push doors where our arm-crossed teachers waited.
    “To war! To war!” we again urged.
    Martina and I laughed and laughed at the shoving students trying to funnel into the doorway. Exhausted, gasping for breath, we sat hooking our feet under a bar and watched the final boys, who had been playing basketball at the far end fence. Giggling, playfully pushing, still rhythmic ball-bouncing, they disappeared through the doors.

    “To war . . . ,” Martina barely whispered under her breath, breaking the momentary quiet of the emptied playground.
    “To war . . . ,” I soft-echoed to no one in particular.
    “You girls get down right this minute. Martina! Esme! Recess is over.”
    This direct order set Martina’s mouth straight. Sad at being relieved of command, she dropped to the ground.
    On top of the jungle gym in the middle of the empty school playground, for one single moment, I was really alone. Half that moment felt really good, and then for the other half it felt really, really scary.
    “Esmerelda! Now!”
    Hippo, Horsey
    Hanna my hippo (missing her right button eye) and Harry my horsey (rip on his left rear hoof) are the oldest animals in my bedzoo. They were given to me when I was first born, and Mom says that they have “seniority,” which is a long word that means that they should be respected since they have been around the longest. And they are! Parents sometimes make up long, serious words for such short, simple things.
    T he first days that Dad was gone flew fast, like I was on a galloping horse. Those were the easy days. When I missed him first thing in the morning I pretended that he had gone to an early meeting. When he didn’t come home at night I pretended he was away for just a few days on “maneuvers.” This was when he and his unit painted their faces green and went to a nearby forest and pretended there was a fight in that forest so that if there ever were a fight in a forest like that one they would pretty much be ready. It was something he did every few months and it sounded pretty fun.
    I imagined him upstairs in the attic when I was downstairs in the basement. In the kitchen cooking dinner when I was in the bathroom taking my bath. When I was outside in the backyard playing freeze tag with my friends he was inside watching the football game with Grandpa. In my mind we just kept missing bumping into each other by a minute or two. “Bad luck,” I would mumble to myself, and go on my way.
    Although the first days were easier for me, they were harder for Ike. Even though he can be both a skunk and a skink, I felt bad and tried as hard as I could to help.
    “Pretend he went to the supermarket and he’ll be right back,” I explained one morning when Ike was particularly blue.
    Ike did and smiled — for five minutes before the dark