Driving Team Read Online Free PDF Page A

million dollars a week at the mall.” She gave a loud sniff.
    Lisa and Carole exchanged glances. “Just like You-Know-Who,” Carole said softly, thinking of Veronica diAngelo and her mother, who seemed to spend half their lives driving from mall to mall looking for stuff to buy.
    “So, does your mom leave you here for a long time?” Carole asked.
    Cynthia nodded. “She’s not going to pick me up today until six.”
    “Six
?” Lisa cried. “Cynthia, the library closes at five-thirty. Do you just wait on the steps for her all by yourself?”
    Cynthia gave a big sigh and looked at the floor again.
    “Carole, this is terrible. We’ve got to do something. No five-year-old should be left at the library all day while her mother shops at the mall!”
    “I know,” said Carole. “Let’s go tell Mrs. Davidson. She’ll know what to do.”
    “No, please!” cried Cynthia. “Mo—Mrs. Davidson would be so mad! She would call my mother and throw me out and never let me come back again. Then I could never find out what happened to Misty!”
    “Okay, okay, calm down.” Carole put one arm around the little girl and gave her a hug. “We won’t tell Mrs. Davidson.”
    “No, we won’t,” added Lisa. “We promise.”
    “Thanks,” said Cynthia, blinking back tears. She held up her book. “Do you think you could read me a little bit more of
Misty
before my mom comes?”
    Lisa and Carole looked at each other. “Sure,” theysaid together, settling down on either side of Cynthia. “We’ll take turns reading you a chapter apiece.”
    “Gosh,” Cynthia said. “You two are great!”
    Carole and Lisa had just started reading about Paul’s adventures on Pony Penning Day when the library lights flickered twice. Carole stopped reading and looked at her watch.
    “Good grief!” she cried. “It’s five-fifteen! The library’s going to close in fifteen minutes, and we haven’t gotten anything done except pile up a big stack of books.”
    “We’d better get Mrs. Davidson to put them on reserve for us,” said Lisa.
    “You won’t tell her about me, will you?” Cynthia shrank back in the corner again.
    “Oh, no. We’re just going to make sure nobody will check out our driving books before we’ve finished with them,” Lisa explained as she and Carole got to their feet. “Will you be okay back here?”
    “Yes. I’ll just wait till Mrs. Davidson isn’t looking, then I’ll sneak out the front door. Mostly, she never even knows I’ve been here.”
    Carole and Lisa shook their heads. “Well, it’s been fun reading to you, Cynthia,” Carole said with a smile.
    “You’ve been great.” Cynthia grinned. “Thanks a lot!”
    “Bye,” whispered Lisa as she and Carole picked uptheir note cards. “Maybe we’ll see you again sometime!”
    Cynthia smiled and waved, then scooted back into the dark shadows of the tall bookcases.
    “Do you believe that?” Carole asked Lisa. “How could someone leave a neat little kid like that to go shopping for hours at the mall?”
    “I don’t know,” replied Lisa. “But then, I never would have dreamed that Mrs. Davidson could be so nice to us and so mean to little Cynthia.”
    “I know,” said Carole. “I guess it just goes to show that appearances aren’t always what they seem.”
    “You mean you can’t judge a book by its cover!” Lisa said with a grin. Carole groaned and began stacking their books.

“B ELLE , YOU HAVEN ’ T looked this good in weeks!” Stevie stepped back in the stall to admire her handiwork. All afternoon she’d groomed Belle while waiting for four o’clock to come, and now the mare sparkled. Her mane and tail were free of tangles, her soft coat glistened with a deep chestnut shine, and each of her hooves had been polished to a horse-show luster. She even seemed pleased with herself. Her dark eyes twinkled and she held her head high, as if she knew her owner had taken extra good care of her that day.
    Stevie smiled, then jumped as someone