I Don't Know How the Story Ends Read Online Free Page A

the table, which upset the whole arrangement in a thump of pottery and a splash of petals. Mother sent an imploring look to her sister.
    â€œChildren,” Aunt Buzzy said, “wouldn’t you like to explore our quaint little town? Ranger is a wonderful guide—he knows all the interesting places.” Ranger sprang up from his seat like a jack-in-the-box.
    â€œRemember you’re responsible for your sister, Isobel,” was Mother’s parting words to me.
    Once we three were in the great outdoors, that California light was what Granny would call a tonic—like you could take it from a spoon for a jolt of well-being. The air was warm but not sultry, and the breeze caressed with a scent of orange blossoms. Sylvie whooped and raced ahead of us down the long drive.
    â€œWhat did Aunt Buzzy mean about you being less trouble since school let out?” I asked Ranger. It sounded abrupt, but I needed to know if he was a fit guide for two young girls in a strange town.
    He shrugged. “Just that I’m not trying to get myself expelled anymore.”
    â€œ Expelled ? ” I squeaked. “How?”
    â€œOh, burning down the gym, things like that. School is stupid.”
    â€œBut…” Did he mean for me to take him seriously? “What about when you have to go back in the fall?”
    He looked at me with a peculiar glint in his eye. “Who says I’m going back in the fall?”
    â€œWell…your father, for one. You’re only thirteen—you have to go.”
    â€œMy father and I will have a day of reckoning,” he said rather grandly.
    â€œOh.” I was trying to decide what to make of that, when Sylvie called out:
    â€œMore haciendas!”
    We had come to the end of the long drive, where Ranger turned east onto Eighth Street. The houses here were either one-story bungalows or Spanish-style ranch houses with red tile roofs. In Seattle, the tall, stately houses reared over you with glassy, watchful stares, but these dwellings seemed to lay back and regard us lazily. Ranger raced to catch up with Sylvie, calling over his shoulder, “Come on!”
    â€œWhere are we going?”
    â€œYou’ll see.”
    He crammed the hat back on his head. The swooping brim cast a shadow that made him look older and wiser—not like a wild-haired, piercing-eyed boy. Catching up with him, I panted, “Is it a decent place for girls?”
    His laugh jumped out like a frog from a pocket and startled me just as much. “Heck no —come on!”
    He took off running again with a whoop and a holler, dropping a good seven years from his attitude. His broken collarbone did not appear to slow him down at all, and Sylvie was only too glad to keep up. I held myself to a ladylike trot and wondered if we were trespassing on the sunny fields he led us across. Soon we were back on the street, past spurting lawn sprinklers and a long, white building with a circular drive (“Hollywood Hotel!” Ranger called over his shoulder).
    He turned at the corner and turned again at the next, and soon was loping along beside a long plank fence. When he picked up a stick and trailed it along the boards with a musical clatter, Sylvie did the same. They paused at the next corner for me to catch up. “Took your time, didnya?” Ranger said and immediately sprinted away too fast to see the tongue I stuck out at him.
    We had come to the edge of town, where citrus groves stretched as far as the eye could see on the other side of the street. On our side, the fence ended at the corner of a salvage yard. Or that’s what it appeared to be, with stacks of lumber, piles of door and window frames, and sawhorses scattered like a grazing herd. Farther in, carpenters were putting up a house—at least one side of a house: a flat front with painted bricks and columns, propped up from the back with wooden trusses. Is that how they build houses in California, I wondered: one