The Puzzle Master Read Online Free PDF Page A

of a setting sun. She looked at him, dark eyes and hair blending into the dark wood of the table. She sat down on the linoleum, cross-legged and casual, and then reached for more pieces under one of the chairs.
    He copied her and picked up pieces and kept talking. “I’m supposed to be at home, in my room and grounded. I wasn’t supposed to return here tonight.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry.”
    “Nah, don’t be sorry. I sort of deserved it.”
    “What’d you do?”
    “I came home late from this place this morning, when I was supposed to be on time like I promised.”
     “Oh.”
    “And to make things worse, I told my dad tonight that he wasn’t acting like a dad should.”
    “Hmmm.”
    Marshall bit his lip. What did she mean by that? But he went on anyway. “Suppose that was out of line.”
    “Yeah, probably.”
    “And because of that, I was sent to my room for the night without dinner.”
    “Then what if you’re caught?” she asked, as if it were theoretical and not actual. “That you’re not at home?”
    “I could be grounded for a hundred years or so,” he said, voice lowered in a growl. “Not a good result, really.”
    The air condition was cool and icy under the table. A spider web hung down in one of the corners of the table leg, and a spider the size of a penny worked its way across it.
    She shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe you should go home, and come back when you can be here.” She looked at him with eyes of dark holes. He wondered how much knowledge was in her little head, because she seemed already thousands of books ahead of him in smartness.
    “Yeah, you’re probably right. Although, it could already be too late. Leila, that’s my younger sister, finds any good reason to snitch on me.”
    They crawled back out and stood up, the mound of pieces facing them like a mountain of sand that they had to climb up and over. She held out her hand again, and they shook.
    “I’m Marshall, by the way,” he said straightening his baseball cap.
    “Marshall, that’s nice … sounds like a police officer kind of marshal.” He smiled. He liked that analogy. That actually made him sound important. “Got any other brothers or sisters?”
    “Other than Leila, I’ve got an older one Mason, he’s fourteen.”
    She nodded.
    “What about you?” he asked.
    She shook her head now. “Just me, myself and I. I keep pretty busy with them, you know.”
    Marshall smiled. She was funny too. He began to feel a tingle in the back of his throat, as if the walls of it were shrinking. It felt like someone had put their hands around it and was beginning to squeeze . Hard. He didn’t want to use the inhaler in front of her. He didn’t want her to know about it yet. He had to leave. Stupid asthma , he thought , stupid, stupid asthma.
    “See you tomorrow then?” she asked, to his relief.
    He hoped so. Who knew how much discipline he’d brought upon himself with this stunt.
    “I’ll see what I can do.”
    He thanked Luke and told him he’d be back as soon as he could. He just hoped it was before he turned thirty-three.

Chapter 3: Grounded
     
    The ride home was difficult. Marshall wasn’t sure how he was going to do it all quiet-like and get back inside. He’d only been gone for an hour, but someone surely had checked on him … hadn’t they ? They had to know he was gone.
    The sun had already set when he cruised home and a sliver of it was still on the horizon, like a slice of orange. It was a bit cooler now, the smell of autumn lingering above his head, just waiting for the cue from Mother Nature to descend.
    No one was out front. No one was waiting for him. That was a relief—sort of. He pedaled his bike through the gate, and put it back in his spot, next to the minivan.
    Marshall walked to his bedroom window. He looked in through the curtains and saw no one. Not even Mason. He slowly raised it and jumped onto the ledge, kicking himself in and onto the floor in a heap.
    Suddenly, a voice pressed gently into