Finding Fortune Read Online Free PDF

for Hildy to smile. “Aren’t you glad they’re coming?” I asked.
    â€œSure, I am. It’ll be good to see them, especially Tucker. I bet he’s grown a foot. But to tell the truth,” she said, “my son, Jack, didn’t exactly like the idea of me investing in this place. He hasn’t bothered to visit or help out since I moved here. And now, all of a sudden, he’s got a bee in his bonnet and claims he wants to see how I’m doing.” Hildy’s voice sounded like a rubber band ready to snap. “Anyway”—she waved her hand like she was shooing flies—“he says they’ll be staying for dinner, so I need to let Madeline know.” She bobbed her head toward the door. “Why don’t you come with me and get some breakfast?”
    â€œOh, no thanks.” I reached up to scrape my tangled hair back into its ponytail. “I brought my own food, remember?”
    â€œBaloney,” Hildy said. “I’m not about to let a young girl starve on my watch. Let’s go. We can stop by the washroom on our way down.”
    I hurried over to dig my wallet out of my backpack so I could at least pay Hildy what I owed for the room so far. She lit up like she had won the lottery when I pressed my crumpled bills into her hand.

 
    FIVE
    THIS TIME I KNEW the piano music wasn’t my imagination. There was a slow, waltzy sort of tune drifting from somewhere close by. Before I could ask Hildy where it was coming from, she sped up in front of me. “There he is again!” she cried. “How many times do I have to tell those silly women?” I had no idea what she was talking about until I noticed a cat pawing furiously at one of the closed doors halfway down the hall—the same door where I had seen the sliver of light the night before.
    Hildy moved surprisingly fast for an old lady. As she barreled closer, the cat sank into a crouch, poised to scamper away. For a second, I thought Hildy intended to snatch him up by the scruff of his neck. But when she reached him, she only shooed him aside with her foot and knocked sharply on the door where he’d been pawing.
    The waltz stopped and the cat sat back on his haunches. I had never seen an animal like that before—tawny gold with black stripes on his legs and black spots on his back. He looked like he had stepped straight out of the jungle, except he was small like a house cat and tame.
    The door cracked open, just enough to see part of a woman’s face peering out. “Colette, one of these leopard cats of yours is out here again,” Hildy snapped.
    â€œOh, naughty Flam,” the woman scolded. “Where have you been?” Her voice was strangely hushed, the way people talk when they’re in church or a museum. “Just a minute,” she said through the crack. “Clarissa’s catching Flim before he runs off too.”
    The door finally swung open a little wider and a second woman appeared behind the first one, holding another cat. I felt like I was seeing double. The cats were identical and the ladies looked like twins—the same plain wide faces, the same straight mouse-brown hair cropped at their chins. They smiled in unison as they watched their missing cat dart back inside.
    But as soon as the second woman spoke, I could tell the sisters were completely different. “We’ve told you, Hildy,” she barked. “Flim and Flam aren’t leopards. They’re Bengal house cats and I don’t know why you’re so upset. We should let them get loose more often. They could probably help a lot with all the mice around this place.”
    â€œYou know my rules, Clarissa,” Hildy told her. “You can take them or leave them.”
    Neither of the sisters had noticed me waiting out in the hall. And Hildy seemed to have forgotten I was there as she continued to argue with Clarissa about the best pet policy for the school. But from where