Jake Read Online Free PDF Page B

hand. He didn’t say anything to me. It was almost like he didn’t know I was there.
    From his voice, I always pictured him being something like the pictures of my dad, only older. I had the idea he wouldn’t exactly surprise me if I ever met him.
    He did surprise me.
    My dad was blond, and taller than Mom in their pictures. Skinny too. Granddad was sort of chunky. If Mom was standing up, she’d be taller than him.
    Granddad didn’t look like a complete stranger. That was the amazing part. I guess he was thinking the same sort of things, because it was a few seconds before he shook my hand too.
    He said, “Why don’t we talk out in the hall and let Liz sleep? It was a long night.”
    We’d brought some things Mom might want. Mrs. Buttermark set the bag down by the window.
    In the hall, I said, “The doctor said she slept all night.”
    “In and out,” he said, looking only at Mrs. Buttermark. It was like he had something he wanted to say that I shouldn’t hear.
    With Mom and Aunt Ginny, I’d go away and let them say whatever they wanted to, but with Mom lying in that bed, I had to hear everything.
    He said, “I got here around midnight, before they gave her more pain meds.”
    “So you came straight to the hospital,” Mrs. Butter mark said. She was doing the same thing he did, talking over my head. I had the strangest feeling she was really talking to me. “Were you here all night? How very kind.”
    “That woman told me the boy was here by himself,” he said.
    The boy. Me? He meant me? I said, “Miss Sahara said I had to leave.”
    He glanced at me, then away. I’d seen that look before, only I couldn’t think where. It made me feel like he thought I should’ve stood my ground or something. Be at the hospital when he got there.
    I said, “I didn’t know you were coming.”
    “Of course I came,” he said, making me wishMatthew’s grandmother was on my side. He spoke in Mrs. Buttermark’s direction, flicking a look over me. “You think I wouldn’t come when you need me?”
    “I didn’t know Miss Sahara called you.” That wasn’t quite true. I did know, sort of. I suspected it, anyway.
    “Liz should have called me herself,” he said.
    It happened I’d glanced at Mrs. Buttermark and I saw the look on her face. She didn’t like what Granddad said. She kept quiet about it, so I did too.
    Granddad went on saying, “That woman, Sahara, was, was—”
    “Bossy,” I said.
    “So officious,” Granddad said.
    “Insufferable,” Mrs. Buttermark agreed. I’d told her about Miss Sahara. “I guess she wanted to go home. It was probably the end of her day.”
    I hadn’t thought of that.
    “Liz and I were able to talk about how to handle her situation,” Granddad said. I was glad to hear Mom had been awake sometimes. Maybe she’d wake up while I was here.
    I could see Granddad had been an army guy his whole life. He sounded like he was in the middle of a war movie, deciding on his strategy. Not that I getto see a lot of those movies. Mom says I’m too young to watch stuff like that. Mainly it’s that she doesn’t like war movies. I get to watch movies that have drug addicts in them, and kissing. I’m too young for that kind of stuff too.
    Granddad said a few more things about the doctor, how good he is at this kind of surgery, and finished up saying, “I told Liz I’d see to the boy.”
    I was tired of being called “the boy.”
    “I’m Jake,” I said.
    “Of course you are,” he said, making his voice sound like Santa Claus. Hearty. “I know that.”
    His eyes flicked over me once more, and then I knew where I’d seen that look—on the new kids in class. They looked nervous and sort of eager in the same way. They nearly always said something stupid-sounding. The wrong thing, anyway.
    “I know it must look strange to you,” he said to Mrs. Buttermark, “that Jake and I don’t know each other better.”
    “Please don’t worry about the kind of impression you’re making on