Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy Read Online Free Page A

daughters.” He put his hand on my head and stroked my hair. That usually made me sleepy, but tonight it just made me sigh all over again.
    â€œSo, what’s the truth about Mom?” I asked him.
    A few seconds went by before he answered. “The truth about Adele is, she’ll come back to us as soon as she’s able. And the truth about us is, we’ll be waiting.”
    I picked at the corner of my blanket and didn’t say anything. That was what I had wanted to hear, so why didn’t it make me feel any better?
    â€œAre you and Peavine still investigating the Abrams fire, Footer?”
    â€œSince we’re talking about truth and everything, I guess I have to tell it, so yes, sir.”
    It was Dad’s turn to sigh. I rose up and down as hischest heaved, then heard the rumble of his voice through his chest as he said, “You know I don’t want you to do that. I don’t think you should spend your energy on sad, terrible things.”
    â€œIt keeps my mind off other sad, terrible things.”
    I went up and down again as Dad took a really deep breath. He rubbed my hair some more as he said, “Okay. But if I tell you to stop, I’ll mean it.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    I wished I could get sleepy, but I just pretended. I had to do that when Mom was gone, because I didn’t sleep much, but if Dad found out I was awake, he’d try to stay up with me. Then he’d get all tired and grumpy and I’d feel guilty.
    So I pretended until he carried me to bed and tucked me in. Then I waited until I heard his door close, and waited a little longer, until I saw his light click off and the hallway go dark. Then I got up and pushed my own door closed, snuck back across my bedroom, turned on my little desk lamp, picked up my Crazy List, and opened up my laptop.
    One by one, I picked out the items on the list and did some searches. Okay, okay. Ghosts at the Abrams farm were probably a stretch. But I looked up everything I could find on hallucinations, and I didn’t think I was hallucinating when I saw all that stuff.
    Wikipedia said, “A hallucination is a perception inthe absence of apparent stimulus that has qualities of real perception.”
    Huh? Did Angel write definitions for these people?
    The rest of the article explained that hallucinations could come from seizures and infections and drugs and falling asleep when you thought you were awake and migraines and staying in dark rooms too long and brain tumors. I rubbed the sides of my head. Brain tumor. That would be my luck. I clicked on another article.
    About halfway down, I found “Flashbacks vs. Hallucinations,” looked up “flashback,” and read aloud, “A sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of a past experience.” Wikipedia again. Yep. Angel had a job waiting for her in the future, writing articles for Wikipedia.
    I read about flashbacks on two other sites and figured out that the word meant reliving bad stuff from the past. That made me think of Captain Armstrong, when he thought he was back in the desert still fighting in the war but he was really standing in his driveway trying to pick up his newspaper, remembering scary things.
    Except, how could I be remembering something I had never seen?
    My head hurt.
    Maybe I did have a brain tumor.
    I clicked off the web browser and uploaded the pictures of the Abrams farm to get my mind off hallucinationsand flashbacks and Captain Armstrong and scary war things and brain tumors, but they didn’t help much. They reminded me of disaster movies where the camera sweeps across endless fields of everything splatted and exploded. The only thing missing was the doomy-boomy music.
    Most of the shots captured ashes and melted stuff. All the black char made me shiver.
    Fire. The farm, burning. Cissy and Mom . . . What did I see?
    Those flecks—
    I shivered, then rubbed my eyes to make that image