Bone Gap Read Online Free PDF

on the shorter side, but his shoulders were broad as barn beams, and his arms long and muscular. He was so self-conscious about them that he almost always had his hands jammed in his pockets (which caused his elbows to stick out at strange angles and only made his arms look that much bigger).
    â€œSaw you over by Mrs. L,” Miguel said. “She find something on the World Wide Web again?”
    â€œShe gave me a poem. She said she wanted to inspire me.”
    â€œMrs. Lonogan has been inhaling kitty litter for centuries.”
    â€œThere’s that. You started studying for the tests yet?”
    â€œYou sound like my mother. I want to enjoy my summer, okay? Oh, look at her. No, don’t look look.”
    â€œAnd you won’t believe the essays they want us to write.”
    â€œThat stuff isn’t due for months.”
    â€œThe test is in June and September. I might have to take it a few times.”
    Miguel said, “Who the hell wants to take a test more than once?”
    â€œI thought maybe you’d help me with my essays. Some of the tests make you write them.”
    â€œI don’t do essays in the summer,” Miguel said. “If you had a geography problem, I might help you with that.” Miguel and his family were into a practice they called “orienteering.” Theyentered contests in which they were dropped in a strange forest or field or even a city with only a compass and a few landmarks. Finn had no idea why anyone would want to get lost on purpose.
    â€œThere are only three real roads in Bone Gap,” said Finn. “What kind of geography problem would I have?”
    â€œWell, if you planned to go somewhere else.”
    Finn imagined Roza sitting on a bus or perched in the window seat of a plane, blue sky behind her. “Go where?”
    â€œI don’t know. Saint Louis. Cincinnati. Chicago.”
    Finn grunted.
    â€œWhat have you got against Chicago?”
    â€œToo big.”
    â€œSince when?”
    â€œToo many people.”
    â€œWhat have you got against people?”
    Finn hated crowds. Thousands of people bumping and churning. “Too many opinions.”
    â€œI went to my grandma’s yesterday. She won one of those exercise video game systems at bingo last weekend. My dad set it up for her and we all played with it.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œIt said I was obese. When I stepped on the console, the little guy that was supposed to be me on the screen blew up like a tick.”
    Miguel was as solid as a fireplug. “That’s dumb,” Finn said.
    â€œPoint is, even games have opinions. But I can’t even put onweight when I want to. The ghost is eating all the cookies.”
    The Corderos lived in an enormous, sprawling farmhouse, with an attic so packed with junk that Miguel’s little brother had once gotten lost for a whole afternoon. (No compass.) Sometimes, at night, you could hear strange noises coming from that attic, and other times, food went missing. The people of Bone Gap said it was the ghost of the old lady who’d died there fifty years before. Miguel thought it was a poltergeist, a sort of mischievous spirit that liked to play tricks on the living. That, or corn on the loose.
    Finn didn’t believe in ghosts, and though the corn wouldn’t stop yapping at him, he was pretty sure it stayed put. “I think your little brother is eating all the cookies.”
    â€œHe says he’s not.”
    â€œHe also said that he didn’t shave your dog.”
    â€œTrue,” said Miguel.
    They kept walking. The smells of hot dogs and cotton candy mixed with the ripe scent of the animals. Miguel kept up his steady chatter about girls, but none of them stood out much. A pink face, a brown face, yellow hair, red hair, cutoffs everywhere. Well, Finn did like the cutoffs.
    â€œThat one has nice knees,” Finn said, finally.
    â€œKnees?” Miguel threw up his hands.
    Someone standing by