Prince of Air Read Online Free PDF Page A

math homework and go to bed.”
    Great-Aunt Maisie stared at him, hard.
    â€œActually,” she said finally, “I don’t really care what you want. The time has come for me to go back there, and go back there I shall.”
    â€œWhere’s there?” Maisie asked her.
    Again Great-Aunt Maisie ignored her.
    â€œI always assumed it took two. A girl and a boy. Your point about age can’t be ignored, obviously. Thorne and I stopped when he stole the shard when we were sixteen years old. Sixteen is still so young,” she added wistfully. “Isn’t it?”
    Maisie and Felix both knew that was the kind of question that did not require an answer. A
rhetorical
question, which was a vocabulary word from back in January.
    â€œWe all know you two can do it. But we don’t know if you can take me along. If we three hold the object, and you two go without me, that won’t do, will it?”
    Another rhetorical question.
    Great-Aunt Maisie’s brow was creased with concentration.
    Finally, she said, “Oh dear.”
    Maisie and Felix waited.
    â€œI believe I need Thorne in order for it to work,” she said.
    â€œAnd Thorne refuses to do it,” Great-Uncle Thorne bellowed from the doorway.
    He walked in The Treasure Chest, his silk top hat still on his head and a fresh white flower in the buttonhole of his tuxedo jacket.
    Great-Uncle Thorne’s walking stick had a miniature solid-gold replica of Elm Medona on top of it. He held the stick by that and pointed it at each of them, from Maisie to Felix to Great-Aunt Maisie, his shaggy white eyebrows lowered above his brilliant blue eyes.
    â€œNow,” he said, “suppose you all tell me exactly what is going on here.”
    The walking stick was pointed at Great-Aunt Maisie.
    â€œStarting with you, my darling sister.”
    â€œAs if you didn’t know,
darling
brother,” Great-Aunt Maisie said. And with that, she turned and walked out.

Maisie sat in the corner of the Billiard Room, mentally sending bad vibrations to Jim Duncan as he set up his pool shot.
    Jim practically laid across the pool table, stretching the stick and gently making his shot.
    The five other kids gathered around the table all let out a big whoop. Stupid Jim Duncan had made the shot.
So much for mental telepathy,
Maisie thought.
    Aiofe appeared, wheeling a cart with a pitcher of lemonade and a tray of assorted cookies for everyone.
    â€œWhoa,” Jim said when he saw Aiofe. “You’ve got a maid?”
    â€œActually,” Maisie said from her perch on the window seat, “we have, like, six maids.”
Take that, Jim Duncan
, she thought.
    But Jim didn’t hear her. No one did. They were too busy already on to their next topic of conversation, the upcoming Talent Show at school. Jim was going to play his guitar and sing “Hotel California.” Avery Mason, she of the prettiest hair in the entire sixth grade, maybe even the entire school, and Bitsy Beal, whose family was so rich she arrived at school every day in a chauffeured limousine, had choreographed an interpretive dance performance.
    â€œYou playing something on your cello?” Jim asked Lily.
    â€œBach,” she said.
    Lily had on one of her dumb vintage dresses, a paisley button-down thing that needed to be hemmed.
    â€œBach,” Maisie said under her breath, imitating Lily.
    â€œHow about you, Maisie?” Jim asked.
    Lily, Avery, Bitsy, Felix, Jim, and Daniel Dunne in his ridiculous red sailing shorts and raspberry polo shirt, all seemed to turn to look at her at once. Maisie kept her eyes on the peacock-and-peony pattern on the window-seat cushion.
    The silence seemed to be about the noisiest things Maisie had ever heard. She shifted uncomfortably on the window seat but didn’t look up at Jim.
    â€œShe’s going to be my assistant,” Felix said finally.
    â€œAssistant?” Bitsy said. Or maybe Avery said it. To Maisie, they