Tin Lily Read Online Free PDF

Four. There’s mud on the daisy rug Mom made me, an evidence bag on my bed.
    “I’m sorry about the mud,” Officer Archie says. He grabs up the evidence bag and tucks it away.
    One step. Two. Three steps. Closet. I pull down two duffle bags. Margie disappears, comes back with three big suitcases that roll around on wheels. I don’t remember them.
    I have a lot of books. We pack them up. They fit. I take clothes, my journals, my wannabe iPod and an old laptop Mom bought last year. I leave Tiananmen Square and the brave tank man behind.
    There’s only one book left—the paperback I’m rereading for the third time— The Stand by Stephen King.
    “How can you stomach all that horror stuff, Lilybeans?”
    “It ’ s about more than that.”
    “But everyone dies.”
    “Not everyone. There ’ s Stu and Larry and Joe and Mother Abigail and Tom Cullen and Nick and Frannie. Tons of people left. M-O-O-N, that spells starting over.”
    The phone in Mom’s room rings. Hank. Must be Hank. I hear bees buzzing again, loud in my ears, taking over everything. Then peace.
     
    *   *   *
     
    “Lily?” Margie’s saying. She’s at my side now. I don’t know when she crossed the room. One minute she was at the closet, the next, she’s right next to me, like I blinked and she teleported. I’m still holding my book.
    “Just about done,” I say.
    “Where’d you go, kiddo?”
    “Again?”
    Margie nods. “A few minutes this time. Couldn’t move ya, kid.” She’s trying to make light, but it’s no good. The fear is huge in her eyes and her cell phone’s clutched tight in her hand.
    “Was it like before?” Margie asks. Her voice is feathery in this silent mausoleum, a wisp of sound the dead house won’t echo. Nothing is like what it was before, but that's not what she’s asking.
    “I guess so.”
    “Do you remember anything?”
    I lift The Stand to show Margie. “I was having memories about this book.”
    She nods. “All that time?”
    “No, a few seconds I think.”
    “And then what?”
    “Ringing. Mom’s phone ringing?”
    Margie’s face creases. “It didn’t ring. What about the bees?”
    “They were there. Loud.”
    “What do you remember after that?”
    “You calling my name.”
    “Anything I can do to help?” Officer Archie says. He’s ready for us to go.
    Fear dissolves. Margie is Margie again. “Would you help us haul this out?”
    “Of course,” he says.
    “Shall we?” Margie says. She’s got one arm held out, sweeping me toward the door. Her other hand is holding tight to her cell phone. We’re pretending about the lost minutes. We’re pretending she’s not thinking about Mack and Darcy.
    I look around my empty bedroom and take a deep breath of dog food. My last. “I’m ready.”
    “We might have to make two trips,” Margie says.
    “No, it’ll fit.”
    “Your mom always said you knew just how things would fit. Instinctively. Like that dresser.” Margie points at the big vanity Mom and I carried up here ourselves. “You could tell that would fit through the door before you brought it home.”
    “Mom told you that?”
    She nods and her eyes are bright now. She’s close to saying “Your mom was really proud of you” or something like it.
    “I’m ready,” I say again before her mouth opens.

 
     
Nine
     
    We wait in the hotel, not eating much, not swimming in the pool, only sometimes sleeping. We wait for Officer Archie to call and tell us they caught Hank. We don’t talk about Grandpa Henry’s money again or anything important. I don’t tell Margie about Hank at the dog food house. I think seeing Hank with his gun and his paintbrush might get me sent someplace besides Seattle, besides Mack and Darcy’s. Maybe the loony bin. We don’t talk about the bees either. We're quiet, me and Margie.
    Margie’s cell phone plays a song. It's not about Hank, I see by her face. It's about Mom. When she hangs up she says words I don’t want to hear. “We can lay your mom