Vanishing Acts Read Online Free PDF

tried to make sense of my notes, to find some sort of pattern, either in the style of attack, the dog breed, or the time of day. Sure, Harry described his dog’s attack in the same way Milton had, but other than that, there weren’t many similarities.
    However, all of the eggings took place on the weekend or early in the morning or late in the day—so I could at least conclude that the egger had a traditional nine-to-five type of job. Or maybe he or she or they were in school. Or maybe the egger had nothing to do all day and just waited until the park was most populated with dogs, since most dog owners do have jobs or go to school.
    This person liked to climb trees. Or at least, he or she was good at it. Also, the egger ran fast.
    Lots of people go to school or have jobs or don’t and can run fast and climb trees, so I wasn’t really narrowing my suspects down very far.
    I drew a map of that section of the park: playground on the right, Long Meadow straight ahead, lots of trees and lots of brush. In other words, plenty of places to hide.
    When I heard my mom’s voice a few minutes later, I jumped.
    I turned to find her standing in my doorway, still in her navy blue suit from work. She’d changed her shoes though, unless she’d started wearing bunny slippers to the office and I just hadn’t noticed.
    â€œHow’s your homework?” she asked.
    â€œGreat,” I said. And I wasn’t lying. Not really. My homework
was
great—and sitting untouched in my notebook. Pristine, with no fingerprints, wrinkles, or wrong answers. Only, there weren’t any right answers, either. I hadn’t begun.
    Not that I was about to admit this to my mom. She’s cool, but strict when it comes to schoolwork. One of those moms who wants to know what Finn and I learned each day. And she’s way into scheduling our free time, too. I’m lucky she lets me walk dogs, and I’m onlyallowed to keep it up if I make it home by five thirty every night and keep my grades up.
    â€œI didn’t hear you come in,” I said.
    â€œYou must be concentrating pretty hard, because you forgot to set the table.”
    â€œIs it already time for dinner?” I checked my watch.
    â€œIt’s okay. I did it, and everyone else is already sitting down.”
    I closed my notebook and followed my mom into the dining room. Finn and our dad had already started in on the turkey meatloaf.
    â€œHi, Mags,” said my dad. “Finn was just telling me about your strange morning.”
    â€œHuh?” I asked, since I hadn’t told him about Charlotte and the new dog-egger case.
    â€œI mean the blow-up dolls,” said Finn.
    â€œOh, that. I almost forgot.” Sometimes it amazes me how much can happen in a single day.
    â€œDid you say blow-up doll?” asked our mom with a look of alarm.
    I told her all about the inflatable crowd. “It was supposed to be a part of the new Seth Ryan movie. They’re filming on Second Street starting tomorrow.”
    My father grinned. “I was wondering how long it would be before you found out about that.”
    â€œYou mean you knew?” I asked.
    â€œSure. Jenna Beasely came around with a petition trying to get the location moved last month,” he explained.
    â€œWho?” I asked.
    â€œYou know Jenna,” said my mom. “She’s my friend from law school. We all had brunch at that great place on Vanderbilt last summer.”
    â€œThere’s no such thing as a great brunch place,” said Finn. “Which is exactly what I tried to tell you last week at Rio Nadres.”
    â€œIt got amazing reviews online,” said Mom.
    â€œDid they mention that you have to wait for over an hour before being served a lousy plate of runny eggs and cold potatoes?”
    Making Finn wait around for food when he’s hungry is pretty much the worst thing you can do to my brother, which is why he was still grumpy about