Applewhites at Wit's End Read Online Free Page B

Randolph had not forgiven Mrs. Montrose for canceling it in the first place.
    â€œThat child has less talent than a sea slug!” he said now. “She not only isn’t the cream, she isn’t even the skim milk of the creative crop! I will not have Priscilla Montrose at Eureka! under any circumstances whatsoever.”
    â€œMaybe you should consider that this is a child who really needs us!” Lucille offered.
    â€œAnd it could certainly be argued that we need her,” Zedediah added.
    â€œClearly,” Archie said, “we can’t afford to be choosy.”
    Randolph looked at the application again. Then he leafed through the pages. “We couldn’t take her anyway,” he said. “Not from this application. Look at this signature!” He pointed to the line where the parent was supposed to sign the form. “Priscilla has quite obviously forged her mother’s signature.”
    â€œThink of it as a sign of independence!” Sybil said.
    â€œThis is not a valid application. The child has gone behind her mother’s back. I’ll make you a bet she was forbidden to apply. That hateful, spiteful, vengeful woman would never allow her child to spend the summer with us!”
    â€œI was afraid you’d take this stand,” said Sybil with a sigh.
    â€œWe can survive with six campers,” Randolph said. “We’ll just have to cut a few corners, that’s all. Be a little more frugal.”
    E.D. shook her head. Frugal had been another of her vocabulary words: “characterized by thriftiness and avoidance of waste,” it meant. They’d had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch—for the third time that week. She didn’t think they could be any more frugal than they already were.

Chapter Four
    O nce it was clear there was no application winnowing to be done, Archie left the meeting to go pick up the swimming pool ladder he had bought from Craigslist for the diving platform. He took Destiny with him and told Jake he’d need some help when they got back. Meantime, Jake was eager to hear who the campers were that he was going to have in his singing workshop.
    Lucille and Sybil had spent a long time going over the applications and were now taking turns presenting the campers to the family. It occurred to Jake halfway through Lucille’s presentation of the first one—a thirteen-year-old boy named Quincy Brown—that he hadn’t really thought this whole camp idea through. There had been some vague image in his mind of a bunch of little kids he could get singing with him, the way he’d done with Destiny. Little kids. Not somebody almost his own age who had won so many talent shows that he was paying for camp himself from his winnings!
    When Sybil began talking about the next two—a pair of eleven-year-old twins named Ginger and Cinnamon Boniface—Hal began to hyperventilate. He excused himself and went up to his room. “He’ll get used to the idea by the time they come,” Lucille assured everyone. “It’s only six kids.”
    After Sybil and Lucille finished talking about all of them—three girls and three boys—Jake felt a headache coming on. He’d taken a few notes so he could fill Archie in, but E.D. was going to make up a booklet of camper bios so everybody could have a copy. “It’s important for all of you to memorize the bios,” she said in her usual bossy way, “so you’ll be ready to handle the campers.”
    Jake didn’t see how memorizing all the great accomplishments these kids had put on their applications would help him get ready to handle anybody.
    â€œOne of them is the son of rock stars!” he told Archie later as he held the ladder Archie was attaching to the diving platform.
    Destiny was sitting on the floor pounding nails into a board Archie had given him. “Rock stars?” he asked. “You mean those guys E.D. has pitchers