Runaways Read Online Free PDF Page B

care. But she was curious. Just to be safe she started gathering up the money from the pig bank and putting it in the top drawer of her dresser, and then scooping up the broken pieces of pig. She had just finished dumping the pig scraps into the wastepaper basket when there was a light rap on her bedroom door and Linda came in.
    Linda was looking puzzled, Dani decided, and maybe a little bit pleased.
    “What was that?” Stormy demanded. “Sounded like someone breaking the door down.”
    “It was Ronnie,” Linda said, “with a message from some people who are staying at the hotel.”
    “Yeah.” Dani rolled her eyes. “Should have known it was old Ronnie. Who else knocks like that?”
    Ronnie was the fifteen-year-old son of the Grablers, who owned the General Store and Grand Hotel and Bar, as well as the land around it, which included the historic old Jerky Joe cabin where the O’Donnells lived. All of which, some people in town said, the Grablers had kind of stolen from Jerky Joe’s descendants. So Linda knew the adult Grablers, Howie and Brenda, pretty well. Knew too much about them actually, like the fact that they were lousy landlords, raising the rent all the time and refusing to repair anything. And Dani knew a lot about Ronnie Grabler too. At the Rattler Springs school Ronnie was practically famous for pounding on anything that got in his way. Like doors, for instance, but also car fenders, and other people’s belongings. Not to mention the faces of quite a few of his classmates. But right at the moment Dani couldn’t think of any reason why Ronnie might be mad at her. Stormy seemed to be pretty much in the dark too.
    “Was that all old Ronnie wanted?” Dani asked cautiously.
    “I think so,” Linda said. “All he said was that some people who are staying at the hotel want to talk to me.” Linda looked at a piece of notebook paper. “Some people named Smithson?” She looked at Dani and Stormy questioningly as if she thought they might know who the Smithsons were. They both shook their heads.
    “I’ll just run over and see what’s up,” Dani’s mother said. “You two go on reading. I’ll be right back.” Linda picked up Dani’s hairbrush and gave her flyaway hair a whack or two before she went out.
    Dani didn’t expect her mother to be gone long since the hotel was only a few yards away, if you went in the handy back way through the lunchroom kitchen. While she was gone Stormy went back to the subject of how they could make some money for bus tickets. He even suggested some things they might try—like starting a car-washing business, or else maybe robbing a bank.
    Dani pointed out that the car-washing idea might work anywhere else but in Rattler Springs where all the cars were so old and ugly that nobody bothered to wash them. And as for bank robbery, she thought he was kidding, but with Stormy it wasn’t easy to tell. She was thinking of telling him that her bank-robbing license had just expired, when Linda returned. She had, she told them excitedly, wonderful news.
    Dani wasn’t too thrilled. Optimistic Linda was always dreaming up great things that were about to happen. Like the wonderful cattle ranch they were heading for when they left Sea Grove, for instance. “What kind of wonderful news?” Dani asked suspiciously.
    “Well, the Smithsons.” Linda took a business card out of her pocket and studied it carefully. “Well, it seems that Ivor and Emily Smithson are geologists and they—”
    “Are what?” Stormy interrupted. “What are ge—what you said—what are they?”
    “Geologists are people who study the earth,” Linda told him. “Rocks and minerals and things like that. Anyway, it seems the Smithsons are going to be doing some work in this area and they’re staying at the hotel while they look for a place to rent. I guess someone told them about the ranch house and they thought it might be just what they’re looking for.” Linda smiled and blinked in a dazed sort of