Owls Well That Ends Well Read Online Free PDF Page A

thing.”
    “I’d suggest a gaggle, like for geese, but I don’t want to insult them,” I said. “Though I can’t imagine why this many people would want to spend a perfectly good Saturday at a yard sale.”
    “Maybe Dad took my suggestion,” he said.
    “What suggestion?”
    “To spread a rumor that Captain Ezra Sprocket hid his pirate loot somewhere in the house,” Rob said.
    “Oh, good grief,” I said. “Even if he had and we’d found it, do they really think we’d absent-mindedly put it out for the yard sale along with the empty plastic flowerpots and worn-out linens?”
    Rob shrugged.
    “And didn’t you and Dad make up Pirate Ezra anyway?”
    “Yeah,” he said. “But I can see the Sprockets having a pirate or two in their family tree, can’t you?”
    “They’re all pirates,” I grumbled. “I still don’t get it.”
    “Well, you wouldn’t,” Rob said.
    “No,” I said. “I’ve lost the ability to look at Edwina’s clutter in a detached fashion, as a mere collection of inanimate objects—annoying, perhaps a little sad, but essentially benign. I’ve started to see it as a hostile force occupying the house—a force against which I’ve been doing battle for weeks.”
    “Battle?” Rob echoed.
    “And while I’ve evicted the Army of Clutter from the house, and even banished some of it entirely to the dump or the local antique stores, most of its forces are now encamped on our lawn,” I went on, waving my hand at the yard sale area. “In fact, they’ve gotten reinforcements from other households and are even now plotting revenge. Planning sieges and ambushes, and beaming hostility at us so strongly that I’m surprised you can’t see a visible, tangible haze floating up and drifting malignantly toward the house.”
    “Wow,” Rob said. “I want some of what you’re on.”
    So much for explaining how I felt to my family.
    At eight-thirty my mother showed up, dressed as a flapper, with a candy cigarette in a foot-long antique holder. She looked impossibly elegant, and I fought off one of my occasional moments of resentment that I’d inherited her height, but not her blonde hair or slender model’s build.
    She also looked calm and rested, and I wondered if it had been a good idea, camping out here in the house so she and Dad could stay at the Cave. Then I reminded myself that it had been my suggestion. The cramped, cluttered Cave had been giving me claustrophobia for weeks.
    “Hello, dear,” she said, pecking me on the cheek. “Sorry I’m so late. Is there anything I can do to help?”
    “Actually, there is,” I said.
    Mother looked startled. No doubt she’d been making one of those obligatory social offers that one is supposed to decline with polite assurances that everything is under control. After more than thirty-five years, she should know I have no social graces.
    “We’re not opening the sale until nine,” I said. “People have been ringing the doorbell since before six, badgering us to let them in early. Can you do something about them?”
    “Of course, dear,” Mother purred. She drew herself up, adding a full inch to her height, and headed toward the front door with her sternest face on. I wasn’t sure if it was the chance to play Miss Manners and boss people around or the fact that the would-be early birds were trying to get into the sale ahead of her, but she threw herself into her assigned task with enthusiasm. Ten minutes later, when I had a moment to glance out one of the side windows, I saw that she’d chivvied the arriving crowds into a neat line leading up to the gate of the yard sale area, and was lecturing Gordon-you-thief on the rudeness of cutting in line.
    Hundreds of people, and at least half of them in costume. Although many of the costumes consisted solely of masks bought from Rob, who’d set up a table by the driveway, right beneath one of the posters announcing the costume discount. He didn’t have a lot of variety—in fact, apart from