Greetings from Nowhere Read Online Free PDF

now and then, there was a clearing and Willow could look out at the gray-green treetops below. Once in a while, they passed a store. Brightly colored signs announced the things inside.
    BOILED PEANUTS.
    INDIAN BLANKETS.
    PEACH PRESERVES.
    Before long, there were no more stores, no more signs, no
more cars. Just a few lonely-looking houses with sleeping dogs in the yards and old men on the porches. A few trailers, nestled in among the trees at the end of dirt driveways.
    Willow stared glumly out the window.
    She was a long, long way from her little brick house in Hailey.
    From the winding driveway where she and Maggie played jump rope.
    From the bedroom with her china horse collection lined up on the white shelf over the bed.
    From the vine-covered mailbox that never had letters from Dorothy.
    Willow’s old life was history.

Loretta

    â€œSmell that air,” Loretta’s mother said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “I just love the Smoky Mountains.”
    â€œMe too,” Loretta said.
    She had never been to the Smoky Mountains before. She had known they were there, of course, starting way over on the other side of Tennessee from where she lived and stretching clear on into North Carolina. She had made a model of them one time for school, mixing up a goopy clay out of flour and salt and water and patting it into mounds on cardboard. She had painted the mountains green and brown.
    Now here she was in the real Smoky Mountains, sitting in
the backseat of their big white van with Murphy’s Heating and Plumbing painted on the side. Her father’s tools slid back and forth across the metal floor of the van as they followed the winding road up the mountain.
    Every few minutes, Loretta wiggled her hand, making the silver charm bracelet jingle on her wrist. She had looked at each charm about a million times, imagining the place it had come from.
    The cowboy boot from Texas.
    The starfish from Florida.
    The cactus from Arizona.
    She felt a tingle of excitement as she looked out the window at the sights along the roadside. Souvenir shops and country stores. Vegetable stands and flea markets.
    When they crossed the state line, they stopped to take pictures, posing beside the WELCOME TO NORTH CAROLINA sign, their arms around each other, smiling and saying “Cheese.”
    They ate sandwiches at a picnic table on the side of the road.
    â€œListen how quiet it is,” Loretta’s mother said. They all three sat still, cocking their heads and looking skyward, taking in the silence that was interrupted only by the bees buzzing around the tops of their soda cans.
    Every once in a while, a car went by. Luggage piled on the top. Bicycles hanging on racks off the back.

    Loretta’s mother took a folded piece of paper out of her back pocket and opened it up on the picnic table.
    â€œMaybe tonight we can decide where we wanna go first,” she said.
    They had made a list of the places they wanted to visit in the Smoky Mountains.

    Maggie Valley
Cherokee
Santa’s Land Theme Park
Cades Cove
Tuckaleechee Caverns
Clingmans Dome
Dollywood

    Loretta’s father had said they probably couldn’t get to all those places on this trip, but maybe they could come back some other time.
    Maybe this time Loretta would have to choose between Santa’s Land and Dollywood, he said.
    Loretta wished she knew exactly where her other mother had gone when she was in the Smoky Mountains.
    When they packed up their picnic stuff and loaded the cooler back into the van, Loretta’s father took his cap off and stretched. “I’m just about ready to call it a day,” he said.
    So they kept their eyes open for a motel.

    Loretta wondered where her other mother had stayed when she was in the Smoky Mountains.
    As they got higher and higher into the mountains, the sun got lower and lower in the sky. They passed more souvenir shops and vegetable stands, but not a single motel.
    â€œWe might have