The Shadow Read Online Free PDF

pick you up at seven.”
     

Chapter Five
    Thursday, 7:00 PM
    M y two best friends, whose names I had yet to deduce, pulled into my driveway at seven and blasted the horn. They both stuck their heads out the window like happy Labrador retrievers and screamed, “Diner Brigade!”
    The Diner was paneled in tin on the outside and was divided into two sections on the inside—a bottom area that looked like the inside of an RV, with maroon leather seats and fake wood paneling on the walls, and a raised area that looked like the inside of a party bus, with neon purple strip lights and a disco ball. Tall and Small led me to a booth in the less festive RV area with a Formica table top and a long tear in the maroon seat cushion that had been fixed (sort of) with gray duct tape.
    “The Ravine missed you,” Tall said, referring to the tape. I smiled in spite of myself at how these girls had grown a bizarre little community on top of this particular booth, like one of those crystal rock gardens.
    I sat down atop The Ravine and Tall and Small settled into the seat across from me.
    “So,” said Tall. “Since you’ve been gone, Houseman has been acting like a literal psychopath. Right, Allison?” She turned to the short one, who nodded.
    Houseman. Houseman. Where had I seen that name on my class schedule?
    Allison hit Tall in the arm and scowled. “Which was nothing compared to the pain of worrying about you! Right, Alex?”
    Alex, the tall one, winced. “Of course! We cried the whole time! But we also have been rehearsing like crazy people for this concert. It’s not even for adults. He just really wants to get the elementary school kids excited about being in chorus when they get to high school.”
    Chorus. Mr. Houseman was the chorus teacher in the red bowtie. And there was a concert. When was the concert? And how could I ask without seeming like I’d forgotten everything about myself?
    “The concert is soon, right?” I asked innocently.
    “It’s, umm, tomorrow afternoon,” said Allison. “Remember?”
    Did this mean I had a good voice?
    “Nora has been doing all your solos in rehearsal,” said Allison. “She’s taking it so seriously and warming up before rehearsal like she’s Idina Menzel.”
    Allison was looking right at me. I craned my neck around to see if perhaps she could have been talking to someone else, but there was nothing behind me but wood-paneled wall. She was talking to me. I had solos?
    I had to find Paul soon, or Brooke’s singing career was about to take a turn for the worst, but Alex and Allison seemed to be ignoring the subject of my still-missing younger brother.
    Just then, a handsome waiter with jet-black hair and dark, middle-eastern-looking features jaunted over to the table, sat down next to me, and threw his arms around me. “Broooooke!” he crooned. “We missed you, Babbling Brooke!”
    “She’s back, Oscar!” Alex squealed. “Our Babbling Brooke is back!”
    “Thank goodness,” he said. He looked very dapper in his white shirt and black vest, though his cologne smelled like a Jersey Shore cabana on a Saturday night. “Now I have all my girls back. Al-Squared and the Babbling Brooke. Just in time for my birthday.”
    Alex and Allison—Al-Squared—threw their hands into the air. “Oscar!” Alex cried. “We had no idea! How old are you?”
    “A man never reveals his age,” he chuckled. “Unless he is twenty-nine. I am twenty-nine.”
    “We have to sing for you!” Allison squealed. “Brooke, you start!”
    My throat suddenly felt like it was filled with felt and feathers and dust. “I don’t think so. You guys go.”
    Allison scowled. “Not like you to miss a solo.”
    Alex and Allison began slowly. In harmony. “Happy birthday to you  . . . ” They sounded like Glee cast members. If I’d beat these two out for solos, then I figured I probably didn’t sound like a complete donkey, so I opened my mouth and let out a note or two.
    “Happy birthday to you