Grounded

Grounded Read Online Free PDF

Book: Grounded Read Online Free PDF
Author: Kate Klise
could’ve seen the results. Wayne Junior would’ve laughed himself sick. But I think Daddy would’ve understood. He always said how important it was to follow the Golden Rule. If doing unto others as you’d want them to do unto you was the rule, then doing unto my stupid self as I’d stupidly done unto somebody else seemed only right.
    I left the beauty parlor that day looking like a rat terrier in cutoff shorts.

Seven
Our New Neighbor
    We first heard the news from Miriam Throckmorton. She was married to Dallas Throckmorton, the local real estate agent.
    “Well, I think it’s just as sweet as can be that your brother-in-law wants to live next door to you,” Miriam announced to Mother on the second Monday in June.
    “What?” Mother said. She’d been combing out Miriam’s freshly shampooed hair, but this news stopped her cold.
    “Haven’t you heard?” Miriam chirped. “He’ll be living right next door to you.”
    “In Mamaw’s house?” I asked from my side of the curtain.
    I was sitting on my stool, staring in the mirror and trying to see if I could force my hair to grow by tugging on the roots, like I’d seen Mamaw do with my Beautiful Crissy dolls.
    “Not in my house,” added Mamaw. She was shampooing Mrs. Kay Beth Bowman.
    “No,” Miriam Throckmorton said. “On the other side. Waldo’s bought Carlotta Coldwell’s old house.” Then, turning to Mother, she added in a loud whisper: “He told Dallas he wants to get closer to you.”
    Mother said nothing.
    “Well, he’s never married, has he?” Mrs. Kay Beth Bowman contributed from the shampoo tub. “Unlike Josie, who’s married and divorced…Well, how many times has it been? Does anybody even know?”
    I knew. Aunt Josie had been married five times, judging from the wedding pictures she kept on her mantel. But I didn’t say anything.
    “And Waldo’s a certified war hero,” Miriam Throckmorton added. “Of course he paid the price for it. But who didn’t?”
    Uncle Waldo had been a pilot, like Daddy. But he didn’t work for Ozark Air Lines. Uncle Waldo was a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War. He didn’t flyanymore, though. Daddy said something happened to Uncle Waldo in Vietnam that made him act nervous and a little on edge. I often wondered what exactly was wrong with Uncle Waldo, but the details were fuzzy.
    “I must say,” Miriam Throckmorton yammered on, “as tragic as Wayne’s passing was in that terrible, terrible plane crash, you have to wonder if maybe it wasn’t God’s plan to get you and his brother Waldo togeth—O WWW!”
    “Oh,” Mother said flatly. “I hope I’m not combing too hard.”
    I knew what Mother was really hoping: that Miriam Throckmorton had her facts wrong. But the information was correct. When we got home from the beauty parlor that afternoon, we found Uncle Waldo pulling weeds in Mrs. Coldwell’s old perennial garden.
    He smiled shyly. “Josie hasn’t kicked me out, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
    Mother crossed her arms and stared at his bald head. Uncle Waldo had been unencumbered by hair for as long as I could remember. Wayne Junior used to call him Uncle Baldo until Daddy told him to be respectful.
    “I’ve admired this house a long time,” Uncle Waldo said, looking at his hands. “I don’t know if Carlotta ever told you, but I asked her to sell this place to me a dozen times. She was too old to be living alone, and I’d hoped, well…”
    Uncle Waldo cleared his throat nervously. He could see Mother’s eyes narrowing. I felt a bit sorry for him, as one victim of Mother to another. Something about Uncle Waldo always reminded me of those sad-looking dogs that wear barrels around their necks.
    “What I was thinking,” attempted Uncle Waldo, dropping his head even lower, “is that we might build a breezeway and connect our houses. That way, if you ever needed anything—any little thing, day or night—you could just holler through the breezeway and I’d come over and do
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