Casebook Read Online Free PDF Page B

the floor. Eli must have left in the night.
    “The girls said they heard a stampede on the roof. And this morning, I found the front lawn covered with paper airplanes.” She got out the camera and was taking photos when Sare drove up.
    “Better get the picture before the sprinklers go on, ’cause that’s going to be one mess.” I could always charm my mother. But nothing about me was magic to Sare.
----
    *1 This is where I got the idea to change a name or two. I’m thinking maybe I should make every single character in the book a redhead .
    *2 You did give me most of our good lines. I suppose you had to so as not to appear arrogant. As arrogant as we in fact were .

14 • The Year of the Mutants
    Dante, Max, and Miles G. wanted to get into mutants, too. From then on for a year we had blowout Friday nights with five or six guys sleeping over. We named ourselves the Jocular Rabid Rabbits and sewed mutants in the tree house, which we called the Jocular Rabid Rabbits’ Pad. Simon taught us all to sew. To this day, I’m the only one in the family who can mend with an even stitch or reattach a popped button. That was the most social time of our childhoods, Hector’s and mine.
    One night, Boop Two screamed, seeing her former toy headless, ragged-necked, with fluff coming out. After that, the Mims informed us that we had to buy our own animals to mutilate, with allowance money.
    “How many millions do you need to borrow?” Eli asked on the phone. “I have money, too, Reen. I’m not going to let that get in the way.” How could he have millions? I wondered, with a shiver. My parents talked about other people’s money. Hector’s aunt paid his tuition. Charlie’s grandfather paid. My mom and dad felt like they were the only parents at the school who were actually writing checks out of their own salaries. But none of the families we knew had millions.
    This was how I learned we needed money. Could Eli really give us some? He worked for the NSF, but I thought we got mailingsfrom them asking for donations. My mother sent in checks, once for twenty dollars, another time fifty dollars to their Youth Foundation. And to the Smithsonian, too. In the morning, there was a new Albert quote on the blackboard: A TABLE, A CHAIR, A BOWL OF FRUIT, AND A VIOLIN; WHAT ELSE DOES A MAN NEED TO BE HAPPY?
    Not to contradict a genius, but I could think of plenty else.

15 • The Room Not Chosen
    The un-Dutch Holland wanted my dad’s floors to be darker, so he moved into my room for a week. He made me take the top bunk, and I couldn’t sleep right; the ceiling loomed too close.
    I was never a kid who had nightmares, like my sister who woke up tangled in my mother’s bed, their female legs all over each other. But the last night my dad slept in my room something woke me. A scrape at the back of the house.
    I climbed down the bunk ladder. The noise seemed to come from the room off the kitchen. In its life in our house, that room had never been chosen. My mom wanted to fix it up so each twin could have her own space, but so far they liked sharing. All the unused furniture ended up there with a rack of old clothes and boxes with diplomas. From behind the dark clutter came a heave. It was hard to make out words but a melody rose. You told me we’d be together , it said, again and again.
    This could have been from the yard next door.
    You said I could be with you—
    A window banged. I made myself walk through the towers of clutter, to latch the open window. But when I stepped in, a force repelled me. I knew not to go farther. So I turned back and edged toward what had once been my parents’ room. Behind me, a noise choked outside. How much time!
    I put an arm out to steady me in the hall. I was trying to decideif I should wake my mom. But only Boop One slanted across the sheets, the covers flung aside. So was it true: Was my mother in that room off the kitchen, listening to a person outside? I wondered all of a sudden if my dad knew about