Missing on Superstition Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page B

“See? Don’t they look nice?”
    They looked bright and official, Henry thought … but the photo of Josie made him sad. What if they never did find her? He pictured the way she would lie on the couch, with her hind legs scissored across each other, the tip of her tail twitching.
    Mrs. Barker gave the stack a brisk pat. “Take the stapler and some tape, and stay in our neighborhood, okay? Don’t cross Coronado Road.”
    So they set out on their bikes, with three handfuls of flyers and the ardent hope that someone in the neighborhood would recognize Josie’s picture and know exactly where she was.

CHAPTER 7
    A GLIMPSE OF SOMETHING
    A FTER ALMOST TWO HOURS of putting flyers on telephone poles in the broiling heat, all three boys were exhausted. They’d ridden down every street in the neighborhood. The sun was high in the cloudless sky, hot on their backs, flashing off cars, leaving them sweaty and thirsty.
    They’d just turned off Coronado Road to head home when Henry saw something out of the corner of his eye that made him slam on his brakes. It was a cat, crossing a front yard. A black cat.
    He jumped off the side of his bike, letting it clatter against the curb.
    â€œHey! Josie?” he cried. Before he could be sure, a girl—who looked about his age and had been sitting on the front porch of the house—leapt to her feet, grabbed the cat, and ran inside.
    Simon and Jack circled back to where Henry’s bike lay in the gutter. “What happened?” Simon asked. “Did you fall off?”
    â€œNo—I think I just saw Josie!”
    â€œYou did?” Jack jumped off his bike. “Where?”
    Henry stared at the house in bafflement. “Maybe it wasn’t, but it sure looked like Josie. A girl just took her inside that house.” He pointed at the two-story gray house directly in front of them. It had narrow flower beds on either side of the front stoop, overflowing with spiky plants and pink and orange flowers. A green hose coiled nearby.
    Simon lifted his bike onto the sidewalk and pushed down the kickstand. “Let’s go see.”
    They climbed the steps to the porch. “Knock on the door,” Simon told Jack.
    Jack frowned. “You do it.”
    â€œI’ll do it,” said Henry, but not before Jack stomped on Simon’s foot and knocked on the door himself—a bang , bang , bang that echoed inside the house. The boys waited.
    Jack rang the bell. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. The boys waited some more.
    â€œI know she’s in there,” Henry said. He pressed his face against the window next to the door. “Hey, I can see the living room.” He saw a flowery sofa, a glossy coffee table stacked with magazines, end tables cluttered with framed pictures, and a big, fancy-looking green armchair with gold braiding. “It’s very … opulent .”
    Simon and Jack crowded behind him. “Does that mean there’s a cat in there?” Jack wanted to know.
    â€œNope,” Henry said, disappointed.
    â€œLet me see!” Jack pushed in front of him. “Hey, there is a black cat. It’s walking down the hall,” he said. Then he cried excitedly, “Look! It’s Josie!”
    â€œReally?” Simon elbowed between the two of them.
    Breathlessly, they watched a black cat wander into the living room and sit down, calmly licking her paws. There was a white patch on her neck shaped like Florida.
    â€œIt is Josie!” Simon said. “What’s she doing in there?”
    Josie was safe! She hadn’t been eaten by mountain lions! She hadn’t been bitten by a rattlesnake! She’d come down from the mountain all by herself, and she really didn’t look any different at all. But what was she doing in this strange house?
    Henry pointed. “Look, there’s the girl. She’s hiding behind that chair.”
    Behind one side of the green satiny armchair, they could see pink