Finding Home Read Online Free PDF

scrambled into hiding.
    Heart pounding, Casie plastered herself against the wall. What was it? Too big for a dog, too small for a horse. Just about right for a person.
    â€œWho’s there?” Her voice sounded tight and terrified. Seconds ticked away. Possible scenarios rushed through her mind. She could run to the house, but the locks hadn’t worked for ages. She could jump into Puke, but it might not start. She could call Sheriff Swanson, but she had no phone. Finally, easing off to her right, she seized a broken hoe that was propped beside the door. Gripping it in both hands, she splayed her fingers, held her breath, and tightened her hold.
    â€œWho’s there?” she asked again and searched for nerve. But her courage seemed to be AWOL. Her voice trembled, and somehow the sound of it dredged up a little anger. Life had been kind of sucky lately, and she didn’t really feel like sitting back and letting it get suckier. “Come on out into the light.”
    A scratch of noise sounded in the darkness. Bones flicked her ears forward and back.
    â€œI’ve got a shotgun and I’m not afraid to use it,” she said and stepped forward a pace. “Come out or I’ll pepper this barn full of buckshot.” She sounded like Clint Eastwood on an estrogen high.
    The silence that followed stretched into forever, but just when she was about to back out of the barn and scamper for cover, a boy stepped into view. He was scrawny. His cheeks were hollow. His expression was angry, and he was holding his hands in the air as if he’d just been apprehended by a bloodthirsty vigilante.
    Casie blinked in surprise. Apparently, she had never really believed there was someone there at all. “Who are you?”
    The boy’s jaw was set. She could see that much even in the dim lighting.
    â€œYou don’t have no gun.”
    An observant kid, and strangely accusatory, she thought.
    â€œWhat an odd name,” she said and tried to sound relaxed, maybe even amused. She was neither.
    â€œI wasn’t doing nothin’ wrong.”
    She shifted her gaze right and left. The animals seemed to be fine. Al was peering hopefully over the top rail of his gate while his poultry entourage discontentedly waited for him to recline. “Then why are you sneaking around in the dark?”
    He didn’t answer.
    She took a step toward him, hoe raised like a Louisville Slugger. But she’d never been much good at softball. She tilted her head, trying to see beneath the boy’s weathered cap. “What’s your name?” she asked, but he didn’t respond.
    â€œAll right, then.” She had to dig to find her tough-guy persona. “Maybe the sheriff will recognize you if I give him a call,” she said and reached for her pocket as if to pull out her nonexistent cell phone, but at that moment she recognized him. “Hey, aren’t you the kid who led the mare in?”
    There was a moment’s pause, then, “What if I am?” His tone was belligerent at best.
    â€œYou’re Gil’s son?”
    A muscle ticked in his jaw.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?”
    â€œI didn’t steal nothin’.”
    That was most likely true. After all, he probably wasn’t a complete moron, she thought, and didn’t bother to glance at the worthless piles of rubbish that surrounded her.
    â€œHow’d you get here?”
    Bones was watching him with quick ears and soot-black eyes. “It don’t matter,” he said finally.
    â€œYou didn’t walk.”
    He neither argued nor confirmed.
    â€œIt’s four miles to your dad’s farm.”
    â€œI got a bike,” he said.
    She glanced around. “Where is it then?”
    It seemed difficult for him to unlock his stubborn jaw. “Hid it in the shelterbelt out back.”
    â€œWhy?”
    He shrugged.
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    There was a silence deep enough to drown in.