Dog Whisperer Read Online Free PDF Page A

things, but she shook her head. “It’s pretty late. I think I just want to crash.”
    After her parents left the room, Emily yawned—and laughed when Zachary yawned, too. Normally, she liked to read for a while before trying to go to sleep, but tonight she was too tired. It was nicer just to lie under the covers, and let her mind wander.
    Even though it wanted to wander straight to Atlanta .
    But, she should probably save that for another day. She was way too exhausted to think about all of this stuff tonight.
    She wasn’t afraid of the dark—exactly—but, Emily was glad that both Zack and Josephine were up on the bed with her, snuggling close. She didn’t believe in monsters or ghosts or anything like that—well, not much —but, at least, if one showed up during the night, she wouldn’t be outnumbered.
    She thought she would be awake for hours, but the next thing she knew, it was morning, and the sun was coming in through her windows. Well, through the guest room windows, anyway.
    It was Sunday, so they drove into Brunswick to go to church, where her mother sang in the choir every week. Some of the places in Brunswick had already gotten their electric power back, so they had a nice hot brunch at a local diner. Then, when they got home, they spent the rest of the day cleaning up the backyard, and helping their neighbors, the Henriks, clean up the Peabodys’ yard, too. Emily’s father was frustrated that he couldn’t do much on his crutches, so he ended up sitting by the kindling pile on a lawn chair, breaking all of the sticks into manageable sizes.
    Cyril, who operated the town’s Mini-Mart, had arranged for some people—mostly underemployed fishermen who worked part-time as carpenters or handymen—to go down to Mrs. Griswold’s house and start repairing the storm damage there, too.
    Emily had kind of been hoping that school would be cancelled for the next week, but by Monday morning, the power was back almost everywhere—except for their neighborhood, and a few other coastal areas—and things around town felt as though they were getting back to normal.
    Sometimes, one of Emily’s parents drove her to school, but usually, she waited for the bus in front of the Mini-Mart. The Mini-Mart was one of those funny, tiny stores which seemed to carry everything , no matter how obscure it was. Sometimes, people in town liked to go in with a “Stump Cyril” request, and ask if he had any imported green capers or elderberry jelly or hairnets—and the answer was always yes. One afternoon, Emily had even been able to buy a horse’s rubber curry comb there to use to brush Zachary.
    Emily really liked Cyril, who was a gruff and tough Vietnam veteran whose bark was much, much louder than his bite. Unfortunately, he didn’t like her friend Bobby, who had shoplifted a piece of candy back when he was about four years old—and Cyril had never forgiven him.
    But, since Bobby and his older siblings were the only other kids who lived on the peninsula, it was Bobby’s bus stop, too. So, he would come and wait there, carefully not stepping on the store’s property.
    Usually, Emily got there first, but this morning, Bobby had beaten her. He was sitting down on a tree stump by the side of the road, reading a book on boat-building. Before they had started working on the boat, she had never seen Bobby reading, but now he did all the time. Mostly, he read books about building boats, but he had started reading novels about boats and sailors, too.
    Emily waved at the little group of locals sitting at the picnic table outside Cyril’s store—they gathered every day for coffee and snacks and long conversations—and then, she sat on an old log near the tree stump.
    â€œWhat happened to The Cay ?” she asked, since that was the book he had been reading when they were in the hurricane shelter.
    â€œFinished it last