Croak Read Online Free PDF

Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
    She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.
    “Don’t worry,” he said. “Croak’s a pretty modern place. Up there are the Pine Condos, where some of the younger people live, and a few good shops on the right down Slain Lane.” He pointed to a side street paved with cobblestones, unlike the smooth pavement of the one they were on. Lex craned her neck and spotted a handful of oddly named stores: a flower shop called P USHING D AISIES, a mattress place labeled THE BIG SLEEP , and a grocery store with a giant sign reading BOUGHT THE FARM .
    At the junction of the two roads, a gravestonelike obelisk rose out of a small fountain. Uncle Mort nodded to the left. “Best diner in the universe right there. Hello, Dora!” he called to the ancient woman sweeping the sidewalk outside. She waved cheerily.
    “And the library’s up on the left—oh, but check this out, our pride and joy,” he said with reverence, looking straight ahead. At a fork in the road stood the tallest building in town, clocking in at a whopping two stories. The Victorian house was painted a sunny yellow, with friendly letters spelling out the word Bank across the façade. The wooden front porch contained a hammock, a small table, and, naturally, a pitcher of lemonade. “We take our investments very seriously.”
    Lex struggled to take it all in. She had never seen a bank that looked as though it could double as a summer home. Nor could she conceive of a place that didn’t seem to have a single traffic light. And the quaint, nostalgic street sign labeled Dead End rather than Main Street only confirmed her suspicions that the town had surely lost its quaint, nostalgic marbles.
    Then, just like that, it was behind them.
    The bike veered onto the fork to the left of the Bank and passed a large field on the right. Across that, a dozen or so houses stretched down the other fork, looking like any other suburb in America.
    Lex squirmed in her seat. “Are you kidding me? That was
not
a town,” she said. “I mean, where’s the Starbucks?”
    Uncle Mort sighed. “Lex, I know you’re from New York, so I’m going to forgive you for that. But let me tell you something right now, something that I don’t want you ever to forget: Starbucks is an abomination.”
    Lex was speechless, for she now believed there was no way in a million years this man could possibly be a blood relative.
    “And here are my digs,” he said as the bike slowed. “What do you think?”
    Lex no longer knew what to think. The house was practically a larger version of Uncle Mort himself—loud, schizophrenic, and potentially fatal. Speckled with all manner of colors in no apparent pattern, it looked as if it had rolled around the countryside picking up random items and whatnots before finally coming to a halt at the top of its grassy hill.
    Lex ogled the bizarre devices poking out of each window as the bike rolled to a stop. She took off her helmet and dropped it to the ground. “You really live here?” she asked, her voice tinged with the faintest trace of warmth. This house, in all its chaotic glory, reminded her of her bedroom back home.
    Uncle Mort dismounted the bike. “Yep. And now, so do you.” He handed her a set of keys. “Your room is the first door on the left.”
    Lex, who from the moment of her conception had never had a room of her own, snatched the keys out of his hand and tore into the house. If she really was going to be stuck here for the duration of the summer, she might as well become accustomed to the living quarters in which she would undoubtedly be holing herself up. And at least this was an actual house with actual walls and not a crusty, fetid hayloft, as she had feared. It almost seemed—she hardly dared to think it—kind of cool.
    She burst into the front hallway. Unsurprisingly, the kitchen was a mess, and the living room was buried under piles of unidentifiable paraphernalia. Useless junk clogged each pore. Empty photograph