Heart of Gold Read Online Free PDF Page A

empty. Her first task was to check the tank’s temperature gauge. Seeing the numbers were within the ideal range, she slowly poured the premeasured food into the water and watched the sleek, colorful fish gobble down their lunch. Pleased, she locked the door behind her, put Brain’s lanyard back around her neck, and headed back up Main Street for home. She was just passing the church when she saw Tamar backing her green pickup truck, Olivia, down the drive. Tamar beeped the horn and stopped. Zoey rode up to the window. “Hey, Tamar.”
    â€œHey back. Where are you heading?”
    â€œHome.”
    â€œWas real proud of you today.”
    The praise made Zoey feel good inside. “Thanks. Has Ms. Bernadine heard anything yet?”
    â€œNot that I know of.”
    That was disappointing.
    â€œI’m going to check on an old friend and drop him off some groceries. Do you want to go? I can take you home when we’re done.”
    â€œSure!” She loved riding with Tamar. “Let me text Daddy Reg and Brain and Amari so they’ll know where I am. The boys made me promise to let them know when I left the school. I had fish duty today.”
    â€œGlad they’re living up to what brothers are supposed to do. Put your bike in the back and let’s get going.”
    As they got under way and the open land of Henry Adams in autumn, with its spent fields of sunflowers and corn, rolled past Zoey’s window, she thought about how much she liked her life. Back in Miami, she and her mom Bonnie had been homeless. Living on the streets and sleeping wherever they could had been difficult, and made even more so by Bonnie’s addiction to drugs. Last night, when Crystal explained why she wanted to go back to her old life, she’d said living on the street had been sweet, but all Zoey remembered about those times was being hungry and sleeping on a smelly old mattress beneath the highway bridge. Nothing about it was sweet, especially not waking up the morning she found her mother dead, or the two nights after, when she was attacked by the rats.
    Turning her mind away from that horror, she asked Tamar, “What’s your friend’s name?”
    â€œCephas Patterson.”
    â€œThat’s a funny name. Do I know him?”
    Tamar shook his head. “He’s the town hermit.”
    â€œDoes he have any kids?”
    â€œNo kids or any other family, so I go out and check on him every so often to make sure he’s okay. Ornery old cuss though.”
    â€œThat’s what my mom Bonnie used to call Old Man Barker back in Miami. Every day he’d be on the street corner, yelling and shaking his fist at the cars going by. He didn’t have any family either. Bonnie said he yelled at the people in the cars because he was lonely.”
    â€œI imagine Cephas is lonely too, but he’ll never admit it.”
    â€œI wouldn’t want to be a hermit.”
    â€œMe neither.”
    As Tamar took the curve on the road that led past Mr. Clay’s place on what felt like two wheels, Zoey grinned. One of the reasons she liked driving with Tamar was because she drove really fast, and a race car driver like Danica Patrick was one of the many things Zoey wanted to be when she grew up. “Did you ever want to be a race car driver, Tamar?”
    Tamar glanced over and laughed. “I’d’ve loved that, Zoey, but girls weren’t allowed when I was growing up. Is that what you want to be?”
    â€œYep. And a singer like Mama Roni.”
    â€œSounds like you’re going to be real busy.”
    Tamar stopped Olivia beside a wire fence that hugged the edge of the road. There was an old weathered house set back a ways.
    â€œIs that where your friend lives?”
    â€œYes, and he’s kind of odd, so I need you to stay in the truck. Okay?”
    Zoey had no idea what “kind of odd” meant and wanted to see for herself, but when she didn’t readily