The Old House Read Online Free PDF Page B

repairs.
    The school looked like something out of an old movie. Red brick, and there was an odd tube coming out of the side of it from the second story.
    â€œWhat’s that thing?” Buddy asked, breaking the silence that had held between them all the way here.
    â€œFire escape,” Addie told her. “We used to love fire drills when we were kids. We got to open the door at the top and slide down. EllaBelle got in trouble once when she and Nicky Welton came down it without permission when there wasn’t a drill.”
    As they walked up the front walk, Buddy inspected her aunt more closely. “You must know lots of things about my mother that I never heard.”
    â€œOfcourse, she was my sister. I had to baby-sit her when she was really little. The last spanking I ever got was when I was supposed to be watching her, but I was reading a book and didn’t notice that she’d disappeared. My mother came home and demanded to know where she was, and I said I didn’t know and I didn’t care.”
    â€œWhat if she’d been hurt?” Buddy asked, shocked.
    â€œWell, I was pretty sure she hadn’t been. There was no traffic on this street, even back then, before this was the dead town it is now. And everybody knew her and where to bring her home. It wasn’t the last time I had to baby-sit her, but I never again made the mistake of saying I didn’t care. Mom used to make us pick our own switches off that willow tree in the backyard, and if we didn’t bring her one that was strong enough, she’d make us get another, tougher one, and use it longer. My legs stung like crazy when she got through with me.”
    â€œMama never mentioned getting switched,” Buddy said as they reached the front door.
    â€œI don’t know if she ever did. She was thebaby, and she was the favorite. She got away with everything Cassie and Gordon and I never got away with.” Addie pulled open the door and urged Buddy in ahead of her. “She was a spoiled brat, actually.”
    That didn’t fit with Buddy’s recollections of her mother, either. But there was no time to pursue it. A sign over a doorway to their left said OFFICE , and that was where they were headed.
    The school looked and smelled old.
    â€œIs this the elementary school?” Buddy asked. “Or the middle school?”
    â€œThis is everything from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Hi, Sylvia,” Addie addressed the elderly lady at the front desk. “We need to see Herbert to enroll my niece for . . . what grade, Buddy? Sixth?”
    Buddy nodded unwillingly.
    Sylvia didn’t have a nice, modern telephone system where she could push a button to summon her superior. Instead, she turned her head and called through the open doorway behind her, “Mr. Faulkner, Addie Ostrom wants to see you.”
    The man who emerged to greet them andusher them into his tiny cubicle looked older than Addie, mostly because he was nearly bald. He had leather patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket. “Well, your niece, you say? EllaBelle’s girl, is she?”
    â€œBuddy Adams,” Buddy said.
    He blinked. “They always call you Buddy?”
    â€œIn school they call me Amy Kate,” Buddy said. “It’s mostly my dad who calls me Buddy.” It was beginning to get embarrassing. Everybody reacted the same way to that silly nickname; they thought it was stupid.
    Herbert Faulker nodded, as if Amy Kate was a more acceptable name. “Sixth grade, eh? That would be Mrs. Hope’s class. Fifth and sixth grade. You bring your transcripts with you?”
    Buddy wasn’t sure what transcripts were, but she was sure she didn’t have them.
    â€œShe wasn’t expecting to have to go to school,” Addie said. “Something happened to her dad—you remember Dan Adams, don’t you?—and she doesn’t have any papers. But we don’t know how long