The Courage of Cat Campbell Read Online Free PDF

for Peter. Cat had forgotten that the Parkers were coming for supper. Not that she minded. Even though Auntie Charlie and Uncle Tom weren’t her real aunt and uncle, Cat adored them as if they were family. Auntie Charlie and her mother had been best friends since they were girls, and Auntie Charlie still came over most days. When Peter and Cat were little, they had spent hours and hours playing on the bakery floor together, making up games and squabbling over the crayons and blocks. Being only children, they felt more like brother and sister than friends. Cat was very fond of Peter, but like all siblings, they were excellent at annoying each other too. And since Peter had joined the science club and spent most of his time making weird inventions these days, the annoying part of him was definitely getting bigger!
    Cat tapped on the back door with her shoe, unable to use her hands. She smiled through the glass pane as her mother rushed over to open it. “Gracious, Cat! What on earth did you find?”
    â€œA pilot’s cap and a few other things” Cat said, lurching into the kitchen. “Hi, Auntie Charlie. Hi, Uncle Tom.”
    â€œHey, that looks heavy. Where do you want it?” Uncle Tom said, leaping to his feet. He always looked like a giant in the bakery because, at six and a half feet tall, his head nearly touched the ceiling. Cat guessed he had come straight from work, since he still wore his uniform. Uncle Tom was the Potts Bottom chief of police.
    â€œI’ll just take this up to my room. Thanks, Uncle Tom,” Cat said, resting her chin on the box to make sure the flaps were down. “I’ll be right back,” she added, shuffling across the kitchen. Cat caught Peter watching her, and when he noticed she was looking, he raised his bushy eyebrows and grinned. It was as if he knew she was carrying a great big secret, and Cat turned her head away, pointedly ignoring him.
    She hurried as fast as a person can hurry carrying a heavy box of magic books and a mini brass cauldron upstairs to her room. There were three little bedrooms on the second floor of the cottage, and the bakery, kitchen, and a small living room down below. As Cat shoved the box under her bed, a cloud of dust floated up, and she darted over to open her window; otherwise she’d be coughing all night. Then, wiping her hands on her skirt, Cat raced back to the kitchen.
    Her mother was just putting a roast chicken down in the middle of the table. She clapped her hands. “Clear your stuff off, please, Peter. And, Cat, knives and forks.”
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Cat asked, glancing at the piece of paper in front of Peter. It looked just the way his bits of paper always looked, filled with squiggles and numbers and odd little shapes.
    â€œI’m figuring out how to make an earthquake detector,” Peter said, brushing back a clump of black curls from his face. They sprung from his head in a wild, frizzy mass that always made Cat want to reach for the scissors.
    â€œWell, you never know when that will come in handy,” Cat said. “Considering there’s never been a single earthquake in Potts Bottom as far as I know!”
    â€œIt’s going to pick up small vibrations in the earth,” Peter said, helping Cat put knives and forks around the table. “And just because we’ve never had an earthquake, Cat, doesn’t mean we won’t get one.”
    â€œWe might get hit by an asteroid, too!” Uncle Tom joked gently, and Cat couldn’t help laughing, because for weeks and weeks Peter had convinced most of the kids at school that an enormous asteroid was en route to hit the earth. He had worked out the exact time and day it would happen, judging from the speed and direction the asteroid was traveling, and a great many other facts that no one else could understand. So at eight thirty a.m. on Tuesday, September 25, most of the kids from Potts Bottom Elementary had