Greetings from Nowhere Read Online Free PDF Page A

left. When she opened the door, a musty odor drifted out.
    She opened the windows and fluffed the pillows and smoothed the bedspread. She dusted the dresser and cleaned the mirror and straightened the painting over the bed. Waterfall in Summer.
    Waterfall in Winter was hanging in Room 4, but Aggie liked this one better.
    She cleaned the bathroom sink and refolded the towels and made sure there was extra soap. Those tiny little bars of soap with the wrappers that had Sleepy Time Motel printed in shiny gold letters.
    Then she went outside and sat in the chair by the door and wished her back didn’t hurt so bad.
    She listened to the echoey roar of the trucks down on the interstate behind the motel.
    She watched Ugly cleaning himself out by the flagpole.
    â€œI wonder where Harold put that flag,” she said out loud to nobody.
    She buttoned Harold’s old brown sweater and let her heavy eyelids close. Before long, her chin dropped against her chest and she slept.
    She dreamed about Harold. He was young and strong and handsome, wearing his army uniform and dancing the jitterbug in her parents’ front parlor.

Willow

    Willow stared out the back window of the pickup truck, watching her old life get smaller and smaller until it began to disappear.
    The little brick house with the screened porch was gone.
    The swing set was gone.
    The clothesline was gone.
    The weed-filled garden was gone.
    She turned around and stared out the front window.
    â€œWhat if I don’t like our new life?” she said.
    Her father sighed. That little vein on the side of his forehead twitched. “Willow,” he said in that voice Willow hated, “you’ll like it, okay?”
    â€œBut what if I don’t?”

    Willow looked down at her shoes. The pink plastic sandals that Dorothy had bought. They were getting too small. They were starting to hurt her feet. But Willow didn’t care. She loved wearing them anyway.
    Her father turned the radio on. That little vein twitched again.
    Willow watched more and more pieces of her old life disappear as she and her father headed out of town.
    The Triangle Drugstore.
    The Hailey Fire Department.
    The Elks Lodge.
    She mouthed “Goodbye” as they passed each one.
    Before long, there was nothing left of her old life at all.
    Every now and then, Willow looked down at her hands. Touched her arms. Felt her hair. Just to make sure she wasn’t disappearing, too.
    But she wasn’t. She stayed right there in the front seat of her father’s red pickup truck, speeding along the highway toward the mountains. The back of the truck was piled high with boxes and covered with a bright blue tarp. One of the boxes had Willow written on the side in black marker. Inside the box were Willow’s clothes, her china horses, some books, and the calendar with Dorothy’s writing in the little squares of April.
    They stopped for lunch at the Waffle House off Interstate 40. Willow’s father studied a map while Willow ate waffles
with butter. No syrup. The same way Dorothy ate waffles. Willow wondered if her father noticed.
    Probably not.
    â€œWhat if we don’t like that motel?” she asked him.
    He didn’t look up from the map. “We’ll like it,” he said.
    â€œBut what if we don’t?”
    Her father traced along the roads on the map with a pen. “Then we’ll look for another motel,” he said.
    â€œOh.” Willow’s shoulders slumped.
    She was going to hate living in a motel. She was sure about that. Who ever heard of a kid living in a motel? How could you say to your best friend, “Come over to my motel to play”?
    But then, she probably wouldn’t have a best friend. She probably wouldn’t have any friends. She definitely wouldn’t have a friend like Maggie.
    Late that afternoon, they turned off the interstate onto a narrow mountain road that twisted back and forth and around and around the mountain. Every