Greenglass House Read Online Free

dwell too much on how the luggage rack not being where it was supposed to be, on top of vacation not happening the way it was supposed to happen, made it seem kind of like the world was trying to drive him crazy. He started back up the stairs.
    Which was when the bell rang for the third time.
    Milo turned abruptly and sprinted down the staircase to the main floor, past a staring Mr. Vinge, narrowly avoiding plowing into both his father and the silver coffeepot he was holding. “I’ll get it!” he shrieked at the top of his lungs.
    Â 
    There were two of them this time. It was hard to tell who was least happy about that fact—the guests uncomfortably sharing the railcar bench as they got coated little by little with snow, or the
Whilforber Whirlwind
itself, which was definitely not meant to carry so much weight and was squealing abnormally as it approached the platform.
    It wasn’t that the guests themselves were exceptionally heavy. The boot of the car was stuffed full of so much . . . so much
stuff
that the pile of it was actually taller than the smaller of the car’s passengers. It had to have been packed in there by a master, because Milo couldn’t rightly see how it hadn’t all spilled out and tumbled straight down to the bottom of the steep incline. There were suitcases, briefcases, garment bags, something that looked like a telescope case . . .
    Guests number three and four were scrambling to get out of the car before it had even come to a stop. They made Milo think right away of characters from a nursery rhyme, something out of Mother Goose or
Aunt Lucy’s Counterpane Book: On a dark and rainy night, side by side, Mr. Up and Mr. Down had to share a ride.
    And much like Mr. Up and Mr. Down in the rhyme, these two looked like they’d be at each other’s throats if they shared that ride even a minute longer.
    The man Milo thought of as Mr. Down was short and dark-haired and looked like an angry schoolteacher. The other one, if Milo was honest about it, was probably too angular to really stand in properly for Mr. Up. Also, she was a woman. But she looked like an angry schoolteacher too, white-haired and haughty. Why did everyone look like schoolteachers while he was supposed to be on vacation?
    Nonetheless, Milo raised a hand in greeting, regarding the two newcomers cautiously as they disembarked. They both looked about ready to snap. “Welcome to—”
    Mr. Down pulled something from the car and the entire mass came undone. Baggage—most of it expensive-looking mauve brocade luggage—spilled down, bouncing across the platform and clunking onto the steel rails.
    Mrs. Up, who had been about to come around to where Milo stood, froze for a second. Her face went still; then it got red, then purple, then a shade something between gray and blue. Then she started yelling. Mr. Down straightened to his full diminutive height, his face already turning pink, and then he started yelling too. They continued bawling at each other, louder and louder, standing amid the ruins of the luggage tower. Milo wasn’t even sure they were shouting in English. If they were, they didn’t seem to be bothering to use real words.
    â€œExcuse me,” he said tentatively. The shouting went on as if he weren’t there. “Excuse me,” Milo said again, louder. Then, “EXCUSE ME!”
    Without a pause, the two of them whirled on Milo and directed their yelling at him. He tried to listen. Then he tried to interrupt. Finally, he did what his mother did whenever Milo went on what she called “a tear” and couldn’t be calmed down. He clasped his hands behind his back, made a face as if he was paying really close attention to whatever incomprehensible things these two were saying, and waited.
    Amazingly, it worked. Little by little, Mr. Down and Mrs. Up ran out of steam. As the torrent of angry words subsided, Milo realized the whole argument seemed