Fairy Tale Read Online Free PDF Page A

box to get the last few Os into my dish.
    Ugh. "Mom! I said I'm not sure."
    She raises her hands in surrender. "Excuse me for caring. I want to know if I can expect you home for dinner at all. I'm making sfogliatelle for the Nelsons, and you know how they dirty up the kitchen."
    Uh-oh. My mother only whips up her sfogliatelle when there's an impending death. A hundred years ago, one of her great-greatgrandfathers was on his deathbed in Italy, and it was his wife's famous sfogliatelle recipe that brought him back from the beyond. He was able to live another ten healthy years, until he fell into a well. Or something like that. So, though they haven't saved a person since, the recipe has been part of a sacred, treasured family tradition. Italians are weird like that. "Who's dying?"
    My mother grasps for her heart "Oh, it's terrible. Their little daughter, Gracie." She whispers, "Leukemia. She isn't supposed to last the month."
    "Oh," I say, realizing I haven't seen the little blond, pigtailed girl tricycling on the sidewalk opposite us in a while, "That's so sad."
    My mother nods and continues to clip a coupon for twenty cents off fabric-softener sheets. "Are the Brownes having company? I saw a young man there."
    Thank God my parents have no clue about my psychic abilities, or else they'd probably have me envisioning the futures of half the residents of Oak Court, which, considering the number of geriatrics on this street, would be enough to put me into a coma. I contemplate taking my breakfast somewhere far, far away, like Pluto, but I know we'll just end up yelling the rest of the conversation to one another from our respective planets. I reluctantly pull up the chair across from her and say, "What young man?"
    "He was very handsome," she says reflectively.
    "Um, are you sure it wasn't Cam?"
    "It was a blond boy."
    I shrug. "Maybe it was someone selling Bibles or something."
    She thinks for a moment. "Well, he did have a suitcase. But I saw them in their backyard, drinking iced tea, and Ingrid had her arm around him. She seemed rather agitated."
    Oooh, drama. "Is Mrs. Browne having an affair?" I say, raising my eyebrows. "With a younger guy? Sweet."
    My mom shoots me a disapproving look. "Mr. Browne was there, too."
    "Oh." My interest plummets. "Maybe they're adopting a Scandinavian orphan?"
    She sighs. "Well, maybe you can ask Cameron when you see him next. I would invite Ingrid over for coffee if I thought it would do anything, but she's so tight-lipped."
    Smart woman, I think. I like the Brownes. In a way, they're just like Cam... perfect. In all the years we've lived next door to each other, they've been model neighbors. I've never seen so much as a maxi-pad wrapper sticking out from their garbage or heard the slightest noise from an argument wafting over the picket fence separating our backyards.
    I'm glad when my cell phone rings, interrupting the conversation. When I check the display and see Cam's name, my heart jumps into my throat, I flip it open and say, in my sweetest voice, "Hi, baby."
    "Hey."
    The gruffness of his voice startles me. Total Mr. Grouchy Pants.
    ''How are you? Do you feel okay today?"
    "Yeah. Listen, I can't walk with you today. I've got something to take care of before school." His voice is so serious that the pile of worry I'd just buried quickly resurfaces.
    I try to remain calm. "Oh, sure. What?"
    "Can we talk about it later?" He sounds rushed.
    "Urn, yeah. But, Cam..." Should I tell him? Should I say that I know about the tumor? Or should I just let him go? I'm not sure if I would be able to stem the tide of tears and snot before they shorted out my cell phone.
    As I'm contemplating, his voice comes across, rough:
    "What?"
    "Are you okay?" My voice is a squeak.
    "I said I was fine."
    "But you are a terrible liar."
    He laughs, a short, hardly-there laugh. "Can't you just let me pick up my mail-order bride at the post office in peace?"
    There he goes again, using humor as a disguise. Though it