Chasing the Skip Read Online Free PDF Page A

when I came home to our apartment from school for the last time.
    Off to California , it said. Take the bus to Grandma’s. I’ll pick you up soon. I knew that Mom had been talking to a guy, one she met on one of those dumb dating sites. She probably went to visit him. I just hadn’t thought she’d be gone so long. Just last month I’d read an article about a woman who’d been dating online and disappeared. They found her body in a Dumpster. I tried every day not to think about that.
    I should have let the subject drop then, but for some reason I couldn’t help picking at it like an itchy scab.
    “Must be a real bummer for you to be stuck with me all of a sudden,” I said.
    Dad smiled at me. “Not at all. I’m happy to have you along. I just wish it was under better circumstances.”
    “Yeah, well, I guess it can’t be helped.”
    “Seriously. I’m glad you’re here. It gives us a chance to really get to know each other.”
    That was the truth. Dad didn’t even have a TV in his trailer—just his audiobooks. No good distractions to turn my brain off.
    Dad looked at me like he expected me to say that I was happy to be with him as well, but I hurt too much, so I changed the subject.
    “So this Ian guy. What was his last name? Something to do with Shakespeare?”
    “Burnham. Like the woods in Macbeth.”
    “That’s the one with the witches, right?”
    Dad grinned. “Ah. She is cultured after all.”
    “‘Double, double toil and trouble.’ We had to recite that poem for Halloween in the sixth grade.”
    “Nice to hear they’re still teaching the classics.”
    “Even if I don’t know what that wood is?”
    “We can work on that. What’s your favorite book?” Dad asked.
    I squinted up at the ceiling. Didn’t have far to look, since it was barely two feet above my face.
    “I don’t like to read books.”
    “What?” I could see Dad peering at me over the bunk ledge. That was clearly the wrong answer.
    “I don’t,” I said.
    “How can that be? What was the last book you read?”
    “I read part of Ethan Frome .” That wasn’t a lie. I read those summaries online.
    “That’s for school. I mean before that.”
    “Well, we read The Catcher in the Rye . That was for class too, but I guess it was okay.”
    “What’d you like about it?”
    “I liked the way the kid had nowhere to go so he just wandered around making observations about the people he saw.” I kind of wanted to be like him, with my lists and my blog. Just not the crazy part.
    “See? So you do like to read.”
    “Well, I didn’t hate the book, but it’s not as if I read it for fun.”
    “Sounds like your mom. I couldn’t get her to pick up anything thicker than an issue of Cosmo .”
    I rolled over onto my elbows. “Not everything short is shallow. I read the news.”
    “Like, the newspaper?”
    “No. I get my news online.”
    “So you read about movie stars and things?”
    My hands itched toward my pillow—the only immediate throwable object. I scrunched it up instead. “No,” I said. “That’s soft news. I read the real stuff. About bombings and kidnappings and things. But I’m behind, since Grandma’s Internet connection didn’t work that well.”
    Dad looked impressed. “You read about politics?”
    “Sure. I can name all the members of the president’s cabinet. Can you?”
    Dad laughed. “I sure can’t. Good for you.”
    I could name them when I wasn’t put on the spot. If Dad actually asked me to, I’d probably forget one.
    “Anyway,” I said. “This Ian guy. What’d he do?”
    Dad cleared his throat. “Jumped bail. Just like the rest of them.”
    “But why was he arrested in the first place?”
    “Doesn’t matter. Cal needs him in court, so I’m going to bring him back. Why don’t you get your books out of the truck? Don’t think I didn’t notice that you still have work to do.”
    Dad gave me one of those looks that meant the conversation was over. It took all my self-control not to