Needle and Thread Read Online Free PDF

girls left Needle and Thread and ran down Main Street.
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    When Robby’s van pulled up in front of his house, he was surprised to see Alyssa, Travis, Mathias, Lacey, Ruby, Flora, Nikki, Olivia, Henry, and Jack seated in a loose circle in the Walters’ yard, Nikki’s bicycle leaning against a tree.
    â€œHi, Robby!” called several of the kids as Robby stepped out of the van.
    â€œBye, Robby!” called the bus driver.
    Robby didn’t answer the kids or the driver. Instead, he headed for his house.
    â€œHey, Robby, what’s wrong?” asked Olivia. “Come talk to us.”
    â€œOkay, but first I have to tell my dad I’m home. It’s the rule.”
    Robby stomped across his lawn and through his front door.
    â€œI wonder what’s the matter,” said Olivia, staring after Robby.
    The children shifted positions, breathing in the scents of tired grass, damp leaves, and autumn flowers. Nikki pressed her hands together, then tucked them behind her knees. “Chilly,” she said.
    â€œIt’s almost fall!” exclaimed Alyssa. “We’re going to learn all about fall in school. Halloween comes in the fall.”
    â€œSo did you like preschool?” Olivia asked her.
    â€œYup.”
    â€œAnd she’s very excited about going back tomorrow,” added Lacey pointedly.
    â€œIn our class,” spoke up Mathias, “we’re going to learn about Camden Falls’s history this year. Our teacher says she has old pictures of what the town used to look like. And also we’re going to learn what it was like to live in a little town three hundred and fifty years ago. Did you know there were no cars or telephones and you had to go to the bathroom outside in this thing called an outhouse?”
    â€œEw,” said Ruby.
    â€œMrs. Mandel was telling us about all the stuff we can do for the celebration next year,” said Olivia. “There’s going to be a photography exhibit. I might try to take some pictures. I could take pictures of trees and insects, all the kinds that are here in Camden Falls.”
    â€œYou should enter some things in the art show, Nikki,” said Flora. “You’re the best artist I know.”
    â€œThank you,” said Nikki, and she thought of her drawings, of the stacks and stacks of drawings that pleased her mother but for some reason annoyed her father.
    â€œWell, are you?” Ruby asked Nikki.
    â€œAm I what?”
    â€œGoing to enter anything in the art show?”
    Nikki turned away from her friends and faced the Row Houses, the gorgeous Row Houses that made her small home seem shabby in comparison. It wasn’t fair, thought Nikki. She and her mother, and sometimes Mae and Tobias, too, tried to make their house cheery. They kept the front stoop tidy. Nikki’s mother planted flowers in the spring, if she was feeling up to it, and Nikki made wreaths for the front door. But these touches didn’t repair the cracked windowpanes or replace peeling paint. And no matter what the rest of the Shermans did, they couldn’t stop Nikki’s father from opening the front door and tossing paint cans and old appliances and broken motors and sometimes just plain trash into the yard for everyone to see.
    â€œNikki!” exclaimed Ruby in exasperation. Ruby never let one of her questions go unanswered.
    â€œOh,” said Nikki. “Um, the art show. Well, I don’t know. I mean, thank you. I’m glad you like my drawings. I’ll ask my mom, I guess.…”
    â€œHow come you have to ask —” Ruby started to say, then was stopped when Flora poked her in the back. Ruby let out a small squeal but didn’t finish her question.
    â€œRuby, why don’t you tell everyone about your dance lessons?” asked Flora a little too loudly.
    Ruby looked sideways at her sister. “Okay. Well, next week I’m finally going to start taking lessons again. I took tap and