Immortal Max Read Online Free PDF

migrates to Bailey, but she’s hypnotized. Eyes glued on the school bus, she watches as it rounds the corner for Country-Wood and disappears in a brown dust cloud.
    â€œWe’ve been here longer than they have,” she mumbles. “Why are
we
the outsiders?”
    I figure Bailey isn’t expecting me to answer, so I don’t. At least she’s stopped smiling. She’s always Miss Happy Face with everyone else. I don’t know why I’m the only one she shows that other face. The real one.
    â€œSee you tomorrow, Sammy.” Bailey heads for an old white farmhouse across the road, cradling her treasure chest. A cardboard box filled with purple-and-orange plastic strings stapled to sticks.
    On the way to the house, the show-and-tell begins to replay. A bad movie on rewind.
    Did I
really
brag that I would make hundreds of dollars this summer?
And
buy a pedigreed puppy?
    A lopsided shadow streams ahead of me, pointing the way. Mine and Max’s, blended together. I had forgotten about him.
    â€œGo away, Max. I just want to be alone.” Our shadows stay linked.
    Dumb old dog.
    Leaving Max and his shadow on the back porch, I trudge upstairs to my bedroom, toss my backpack in the closet, and flopon the bed. Summer has finally started, but the excitement I felt this morning has faded.
    Just once, couldn’t something go my way?
    â€œSamuel Smith! Get down here this minute!” Mom’s voice is loud. So loud, I can hear it all the way from the plant shed.
    And she called me Samuel.
    Great, just great. What’ve I done now?

Chapter 4

    â€œHow could you tell Rosie she was uncultured?” Mom is wearing her furious face. A traffic light blinking chili-pepper red. “Are you ashamed of us? Is that it? Why? Because we live in an old house instead of a . . . a warehouse with cement floors and granite countertops? I’ll have you know this house has an upstanding history. It was built the same year Lincoln freed the slaves. Why, it could be on the historic register . . . if we had the money to restore it.”
    â€œI didn’t mean it like that, Mom. I like our house. It’s cool. Not because of that historic stuff. Because it belonged to Grandpa before we moved in.”
    Our house is made of limestone blocks. Settlers who came to the Midwest dug quarries in the hillsides and chiseled building stones out of huge chunks of limestone. A lot of the houses they built are still lived in. Like ours.
    â€œThen why?” Mom’s faded blond hair is tied on her neck. Her chambray shirt is dirt-stained. Her jeans are grubby at the knees. “It’s because I do this kind of work, isn’t it?” She holds out her hands, studying fingernails worn to nubs.
    Mom’s sore spot is showing. Someone has made her feel like they’re better than she is. When she’s really tired, she talks to herself. Saying things like
What’s so important about Bluetooth technology?
And
When did a secretary become an executive assistant?
And
So what if I don’t know how to play Mah-jongg?
Mom didn’t go past high school, but that didn’t matter until Dad died. She’s determined that Rosie and I go to college. Like Beth.
    â€œNot that, either.” I tell her about the bus ride home, replay the talk about cultures, and watch the traffic light blink from red to normal: suntanned and weathered. “Read the slip, Mom.”
    Her face blinks red again, from embarrassment this time. She turns to Rosie and wipes tears off her freckled cheeks. “I didn’t understand, Rosie. You see, everyone has a culture, ours is just mixed up. We have a little bit of a lot of things in us. That’s the way it is for people who’ve been in this country a long time.”
    Rosie’s eyes light up. “So I can dress up as anything I want?”
    Mom nods.
    â€œThen I want to be an Igloo Mojo. I just know Anise will loan me her