Into the Wild Read Online Free PDF Page A

it’s off to work . . .” Unfortunately, she didn’t whistle softly enough.
    “You . . . you . . . you,” the dwarf sputtered. “We worked in mines . Hard labor!”
    Julie shrank back. Uh-oh. Now she’d done it. “Sorry! I didn’t mean anything.”
    “You didn’t mean anything? You don’t know anything!” He waved the fork at her. “You don’t know what it’s like to be forced to work all day, knowing that someone you care about is in danger, knowing you can’t protect her, knowing she will be hurt while you’re gone but you still have to go. You don’t have any choice but to go!”
    Gothel plucked the fork out of the dwarf’s hands, spat on the tongs, rubbed it with her napkin, and handed it back. “It’s clean now,” she said firmly. Quivering, he shoveled quiche in his mouth while the rest of Snow’s seven stared. Gothel looked over his head at Julie and winked.
    Julie sagged back in her chair. Rant averted. Score one for Grandma. Julie tried hard not to look at her mom. She’d be hearing about this later.
    Breaking the awkward silence, Zel asked brightly, “So, how’s the jewelry store?”
    “Oh, terrible,” one of them answered. “Business hasn’t been the same since chain stores were invented. Frankly, I’m surprised your motel hasn’t folded, Dame Gothel.”
    Grandma’s motel, fold? Julie couldn’t imagine Northboro without Grandma’s motel. How could he even suggest it? Granted, the plumbing barely worked and the heat was iffy. The swimming pool hadn’t held water in decades, and the rooms themselves still had the original purple-and-orange decor. (Julie’s mom said it was the place 1979 went to retire.) But still, Julie loved it. She’d spent summers playing jungle in the grasses and detective in the vacated rooms. She’d caught frogs in the lobby, and she’d picked apples from the tree in the courtyard.
    “The Wishing Well Motel has had guests every night for the thirty years I’ve run it,” Gothel said, an edge in her voice. Clearly, the idea of the motel folding offended Grandma as much as it did Julie. The Wishing Well Motel was Gothel’s pride and joy, Julie knew—as her mom had once explained, it let Grandma have an income and watch the well at the same time. “Dame Fortune, who has all the money that luck and the state lottery can bring, books with me,” Gothel said. “Even the swimming pool is currently booked by the Giant-Ogre family for Halloween.”
    Obviously seizing the opportunity to shift the conversation, Zel said, “I heard they opened a Big and Tall franchise in Manhattan.”
    “Oh, good grief,” Julie said. It sounded like a bad joke. Were these people for real? Honestly, you’d think they wanted the world to know who they were.
    “Even the son?” one of the seven asked.
    Julie couldn’t resist: “Not him. He’s trying to break into the pro-wrestling circuit, but he only wants to fight Englishmen.”
    “Really?” another said.
    Julie rolled her eyes. “No, not really. It was a joke. ‘I smell the blood of an Englishman’?”
    Snow’s seven didn’t laugh. Some of them looked angry.
    “He does interior design,” Zel said, shooting her daughter a look. Julie poked at her quiche. They were all so touchy.
    Gothel wasn’t deterred. “Do you think I’d abandon the wishing well, even if the economy failed?” she said. “Someone has to guard it.”
    If Julie had the well here, she’d wish the seven were gone. Not that her grandmother would let her make that wish—or any other. Like the items in the linen closet, the wishing well was off-limits.
    Once, Julie remembered, she had tried to make a wish. From her sentry point in the main office, Grandma had seen her. It was the only time Julie had witnessed her grandmother truly angry. Do you want to feed the Wild? she’d said. Do you want to destroy everything? And she had sat Julie down and proceeded to explain why the Wild was so dangerous. No one had ever done that before. For weeks