Into the Woods Read Online Free PDF Page A

flowing"
    "That means she really was going to kill herself," Penny declared with exaggerated eyes. "She wasn't simply frying to get attention. How
embarrassing for her family. I know Caitlin is afraid my brother will stop seeing her because of it. You know, once there is madness in one member of a family, there's a good chance it's in another."
    "It wasn't madness." I insisted, She was just embarrassed and ashamed because of what you told me. Why did you do that so cruelly?"
    "We were just trying to protect you," Wendi replied. It was the least we could do for a new girl."
"You would think you would show some gratitude. She could have one around here telling everyone you were her new best friend or something." Penny added,
"I don't need anyone to tell me with whom I can and cannot be friends." I snapped back at them.
"Well pardon mot," Wendi said. "That's the first and last time we'll do anything to help you."
"And another thing." Penny said, moving closer to put her face into mine. "if you go around telling people Autumn did what she did because of what we said, we'll make you sorrier than Autumn.
"You know." she added, stepping back with her hands on her hips and wagging her head. "families that can't get along with other families in the naval community usually get transferred to another base and one not as nice. My father has a lot to say about that."
I felt the blood rush to my face. The last thing I wanted to do was to make trouble for Daddy,
"Just watch yourself," Wendi warned, and they both turned and left me trembling in the girls' room.
I avoided them for the rest of that day and most of the week that followed. I made some other friends, none of whom was in the naval community. Some wondered what was wrong with Autumn and why she wasn't attending school, but I pretended I was too new to know who she was. By the end of the week, however, Mommy told me she was doing better, and her mother had said that if I wanted to visit her. I could, Her parents had decided to keep her home until her wrists had mended and she had undergone some therapy. However, a visit by me was fine.
I wasn't all that anxious to do it. I wasn't sure what I would say to her. Daddy sensed it and told me that if I didn't want to go. I didn't have to.
"I do feel sorry for her, though. Daddy," I told him.
He nodded. "I'm glad you're a compassionate person. Grace. It's a nice quality to have. Your grandmother Houston was like that," he said, and told me mare about her, her involvement with charities, her volunteer work helping the homeless. She had even been written up in newspapers. and I had seen the articles with the picture of this kindly-looking, elderly but elegant lady serving food in a makeshift kitchen an some city street, but I had never met her. She had died before I was born. My grandfather had also been in the Navy. He was a chief warrant officer. He had served during the Korean War and just recently had passed away, too.
Like me, my daddy had been an only child, but I knew he and Mommy often talked about having another child. The moving around had made Mommy neryous, and from the little I had garnered from their conversations. I understood that she had been unable to get pregnant and they had stopped trying for a while. What made it difficult for one woman to get pregnant while another got pregnant the first time she and her husband tried was still a bit of a mystery to me. I also thought it was ironic that someone like Autumn, who shouldn't have been pregnant, was, and someone like Mommy, who should have been and had wanted to be pregnant. wasn't.
Daddy made me feel less neryous about visiting Autumn, assuring me that she was probably hungry for some company her own age, so after dinner. I walked over to her home. Her sister greeted me at the door,
"Oh, you." she said. "I thought we'd never see you again after the last time," she said. "Not that I would blame you." she added.
"I didn't want to come until your mother said it was all right,"