Calling the Shots Read Online Free PDF

I’d always imagined the Twenties as one long frothy bubble bath. I’d never thought about the deadly PODS vibes underneath the froth.
    Oh, the poor things , I thought. They’re all living for the moment like beautiful butterflies . And then I thought, yeah, right, in Hollywood maybe. But I was stuck in some stodgy Philadelphia suburb with a little diary keeping rich girl who, let’s face it, was not ideal butterfly material.
    I heard footsteps pounding upstairs. Honesty burst in, her face blazing with excitement. “Rose! You’ll never guess what happened. Papa just called Mama on the telephone, and—”
    “And obviously you eavesdropped,” said Rose drily.
    “Rose! I’m telling you the most thrilling news since the invention of moving pictures! He’s actually gone and bought—”
    Rose jumped up so fast, that her little spectacles actually fell off her nose. “I don’t believe it!” she shrieked. “Papa’s bought a car!”
    “He’s on his way to pick it up. He’s driving it home!”
    The girls threw their arms around each other, squealing happily.
    I wanted to be thrilled for them, but the strange sweet vibe was growing steadily more intense and I was getting that disturbing two-movies-at-once sensation again. Something was going to happen to someone in this family. I could feel it with every one of my angel senses.
    “You have to pretend to be surprised,” Honesty was saying. “Daddy will be so disappointed if we don’t act surprised.”
    ” Act ! I won’t have to act!” laughed Rose.
    Honesty flew over to an old-fashioned gramophone with a shiny brass horn and cranked the handle.
    A scratchy voice floated out of the horn. “Put another nickel in, in the Nickelodeon.” This was obviously their fave tune of the moment.
    The sisters started dancing the Charleston, flouncing their skirts and showing their big white knickers. Clem and Cissie rushed in to see what on earth was going on. Honesty grabbed her brother and whirled him round the room. Rose grabbed Cissie, and instead of being annoyed, Cissie kicked up her heels and did some wicked little dance steps.
    In a movie, whenever the characters get over-excited like this, something terrible always happens. But I tried to tell myself that this was real life, not Hollywood. There was no reason that the Bloomfield family couldn’t live happily ever after.
    Sadly, by this time, I’d sussed that ‘happy ever after’ was not an option.
    As the tragedy inched closer, I felt an invisible cosmic gateway opening. The sweetness grew unbearably beautiful and I suddenly knew when I’d felt it before. It was during my last day on Earth, as crowds of angels gathered like invisible birds to guide me back to Heaven.
    Someone was going to die. I’d got here just in time to see Honesty’s old world blown to smithereens. And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
     

Chapter Four
    T he girls were still cracking car jokes right up to dinner time.
    How Mr Bloomfield was so old-fashioned he was probably still figuring out how to hitch the new Model A Ford to the horse, or how he was so thrilled with his new toy, he’d decided to take a spin via the Rockies on his way home.
    But when eight o’clock came and went and he failed to appear, the atmosphere started getting strained.
    “You’d better dish up, Cissie,” said Honesty’s mum.
    But no-one could manage to eat Cissie’s good roast chicken and mashed potatoes, and in the end she took the food away, shaking her head.
    I found their reactions surprising. My step-dad could have been like, five hours late and no-one would have raised an eyebrow. Des is the world’s worst timekeeper. Mum used to say he operated on ‘Desmond time’. But I got the feeling that if Mr Bloomfield said he’d be back by eight then he was back.
    It was dark by the time the police car drove up. Two grim-faced cops came to the door and Cissie showed them into the parlour.
    The children clustered around their mother. Clem was