13 Hangmen Read Online Free Page B

no longer manage the stairs.”
    Plainly, Tony was not gaining any headway. He made one last-ditch effort. “Why don’t you guys sell this place and buy a
real
house in the suburbs, someplace normal that isn’t falling down around our ears?”
    Julia and Michael darted each other one of their parent-to-parent glances. “Sorry,” Michael said. “That’s not an option.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œZio Angelo’s will was actually a little complicated, but the bottom line is we’re sort of stuck here for a while.”
    â€œWhat could be so complicated about hanging a for-sale sign?” Tony said.
    Michael ruffled Tony’s hair. “What do you say we grab a sandwich? Then maybe you and the twins can go out and explore the new neighborhood while your mom and I deal with the bed.”
    â€œThe exercise’ll do you good,” Julia said.
    (That was the other thing, besides portion control, she was now obsessed with. She’d been harping at Tony since school got out: stop chatting online with God-knows-who and start tagging along to the twins’ pickup Wiffle ball games in the park. As if! Angey laughed at the way the thighs of his jeans scratched when he ran, and Mikey said he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn whenever he threw a ball.)
    â€œBut they
hate
me,” Tony said.
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous,” Julia said. “They’re your brothers.”
    â€œThey are totally ashamed to be seen with me, and you know it,” Tony said.
    Michael laughed. “They’re ashamed to be seen with
me,
” he said. “It’s sort of normal. They’re in puberty. Now how about that sandwich?”
    Tony saw no choice but to follow his parents out of the room.That’s when he noticed the door didn’t even have a lock. Oh, great. There was no actual way to keep the twins from bursting in. Seriously, could his birthday get any worse?
    Tony stooped to tie his sneaker in front of the Paul Revere House. At Michael’s insistence, he and the twins had grudgingly agreed to explore the Freedom Trail—a redbrick line embedded in the sidewalk connecting one historic site to the next. So far they had seen the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground and the Old North Church. Mikey and Angey wanted to skip the house tour. They were in a hurry to get to the next stop down the line—Quincy Market—where some kid back in Ann Arbor had told them they could watch street performers outside a giant food court. Tony was secretly enjoying himself. As upset as he was about 13 Hangmen Court, he had to admit the North End itself
was
kind of great. Famous landmarks of the Revolutionary War were jumbled up with
caffès
, pizzerias, and cannoli shops. Plus there were all these other layers of history. He would never have known, for example, that hundreds of African Americans were buried in unmarked graves at Copp’s Hill—back when this neighborhood was known as New Guinea because of the runaway slaves who lived here—unless he had stopped to read the plaque at the gate.
    He stood back up, determined to make the twins take the tour.
    They had vanished.
    Tony peered around the cobbled street; they were usually pretty easy to spot. Nope, they were definitely gone. Had they gotten swallowed up in the hordes of afternoon tourists? Or had they just ditched him—as he had pretty much predicted they would—because they hated his guts? He saw no choice but to set off along the Freedom Trail, hoping to catch up. A little ways down North Street, though, the redbrick line took a sharp right onto Richmond Street. He stumbled along the uneven sidewalk for a block, until it suddenly disappeared at Hanover Street—obviously the North End’s main drag. Tony swore he could be in Italy. Skinned rabbits hung in the front window of a nearby butcher shop. Grannies dressed all in black dipped their fingertips in holy water and crossed