The Elephant of Surprise (The Russel Middlebrook Series Book 4) Read Online Free PDF

a shelter over their heads or even enough to eat."
    So this all had to do with "freeganism"? Whatever that was, exactly.
    "It's a protest?" Min said.
    "Sort of. But also…well, kind of a principled stand. I guess you could say we're opting out. We're choosing not to participate in a culture that we think is immoral. Freeganism means we only use exactly what we need in life. We buy as little as possible, mostly living on what we can forage and what other people throw away. That way, we only use exactly what we need."
    "Freegansim means we're free!" Venus said, throwing in an annoying little twirl.
    Gunnar nodded back at the clearing. "But, I mean, if some people choose not to work, not to earn money, what can you do?"
    "A lot of the people who are homeless in America are mentally ill," Wade said. "A high percentage are veterans with post-traumatic stress syndrome. There are also a lot of children, or single mothers with children. Even when they do work, they can't afford child care. Sometimes they make it for a while, but then something goes wrong, someone gets sick, and they're out on the streets. It's not that they're lazy like a lot of people think."
    Min nodded, her bleeding liberal heart warming to Wade at last. What Wade was saying made sense to me too. Was I being brainwashed by a cult? Was this how it worked? Say things so convincingly that they don't even need to drop a burlap sack over your head?
    Wade and Venus would probably say I'd already been brainwashed by a cult: the cult of a culture that carelessly wastes so much stuff while other people starve and doesn't even think twice about it. Was that true?
    "So you dropped out of school to live in the woods?" I said.
    "I finished school," Wade said. "Venus and I both did. And we don't live here in the woods."
    "You don't?" I said. "Then where do you live?"
    "Not too far. We're squatters." I must've had something of a blank look on my face, because he added, "We live in abandoned houses. It also doesn't seem right to us that some people are homeless when there are all these empty houses around. There's a whole community of us."
    I nodded, fascinated—though I wasn't sure if it was the freegans I found interesting or just Wade.
    "What do you do for money?" Gunnar said.
    "We don't use money, not if we can help it," Wade said. "Like I said, we're opting out." Wade zipped up his backpack. "But Venus and I should go. We're heading the opposite direction you are. You guys know how to get back to your school from here, right?"
    "Go?" I said. "Go where?" I was tempted to add, You live in an abandoned house and eat dandelions and Dumpster trash: where exactly would you have to be?
    "Oh, we have a whole circuit!" Venus said. "Lots of homeless in this city."
    To tell the truth, I was surprised they were leaving. They weren't going to ask us to become freegans? I thought at the very least they were going to ask us for money. Why had they shown us the landfill and the homeless camp anyway? Maybe it was some complicated brainwashing tactic to make us want to learn more about them. If so, it was working.
    "See you guys later!" Wade said, even as he disappeared into the trees.
    Min and I exchanged a look. This wasn't how she had expected this encounter to end either. Gunnar, meanwhile, was busy typing into his phone.
    "Wait!" I said, and Venus stopped and looked back at me. I stared at her stupidly. I didn't know what I wanted to ask her—hell, suddenly I couldn’t even remember Wade's name. "Are we ever going to see you again? You and your boyfriend?"
    "I'm sure you'll see us around." She started to leave, but then stopped again. "Oh, and Wade and I aren't a couple."
    But before I could ask a follow-up question—like did Wade have some other girlfriend? Or a boyfriend?—she'd drifted off into the woods too.
    Okay, so maybe fate had it out for me after all. I hadn't fallen in love with an ice sculpture exactly, but the same day I'd vowed to forsake love, I'd run into Wade, a