Ninth Key Read Online Free PDF

been lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that I’d managed to get his name so easily.
    I was sitting in my room, admiring my poison oak in the dying rays of the setting sun, when my mom called me down to dinner.
    Dinner is this very big deal in the Ackerman household. Basically, my mom had already informed me that she’d kill me if I did not show up for dinner every night unless I had arranged my absence in advance with her. Her new husband, Andy, aside from being a master carpenter, is this really good cook and had been making these big dinners every night for his kids since they grew teeth, or something. Sunday pancake breakfasts, too. What is wrong, I ask you, with a simple bagel with cream cheese, and maybe a little lox on the side with a wedge of lemon and a couple of capers?
    “There she is,” my mom said, when I came shuffling into the kitchen in my after-school clothes: ripped-up jeans, black silk tee, and motorcycle boots. It is outfits like this that have caused my stepbrothers to suspect that I am in a gang, in spite of my strenuous denials.
    My mom made this big production out of coming over to me and kissing me on top of the head. This is because ever since my mom met Andy Ackerman — or Handy Andy as he’s known on the cable home improvement show he hosts — married him, and then forced me to move to California with her to live with him and his three sons, she’s been incredibly, disgustingly happy.
    I tell you, between that and the pancakes, I don’t know which is more revolting.
    “Hello, honey,” my mom said, smushing my hair all around. “How did your day go?”
    “Oh,” I said. “Great.”
    She didn’t hear the sarcasm in my voice. Sarcasm has been completely wasted on my mother ever since she met Andy.
    “And how,” she asked, “was the student government meeting?”
    “Bitchin’.”
    That was Dopey, trying to be funny by imitating my voice.
    “What do you mean, bitching?” Andy, over at the stove, was flipping quesadillas that were sizzling on this griddle thing he’d set out over the burners. “What was bitching about it?”
    “Yeah, Brad,” I said. “What was bitching about it? Were you and Debbie Mancuso playing footsie underneath your desks, or something?”
    Dopey got all red in the face. He is a wrestler. His neck is as thick as my thigh. When his face gets red, his neck gets even redder. It’s a joy to see.
    “What are you talking about?” Dopey demanded. “I don’t even like Debbie Mancuso.”
    “Sure, you don’t,” I said. “That’s why you sat next to her at lunch today.”
    Dopey’s neck turned the color of blood.
    “David!” Andy, over by the stove, suddenly started yelling his head off. “Jake! Get a move on, you two. Soup’s on.”
    Andy’s two other sons, Sleepy and Doc, came shuffling in. Well, Sleepy shuffled. Doc bounded. Doc was the only one of Andy’s kids who I could ever remember to call by his real name. That’s because with red hair and these ears that stick out really far from his head, he looked like a cartoon character. Plus he was really smart, and in him I saw a lot of potential help with my homework, even if I was three grades ahead of him.
    Sleepy, on the other hand, is of no use whatsoever to me, except as a guy I could bum rides to and from school with. At eighteen, Sleepy was in full possession of both his license and a vehicle, a beat-up old Rambler with an iffy starter, but you were taking your life into your hands riding with him since he was hardly ever fully awake due to his night job as a pizza delivery boy. He was saving up, as he was fond of reminding us on the few occasions when he actually spoke, for a Camaro, and as near as I could tell, that Camaro was all he ever thought about.
    “
She
sat by
me
,” Dopey bellowed. “I do not like Debbie Mancuso.”
    “Surrender the fantasy,” I advised him as I sidled past him. My mom had given me a bowl of salsa to take to the table. “I just hope,” I