Relativity Read Online Free Page B

once. “I’ve been eating pizza this way since I was a kid. Bad habit.”
    “It’s cute,” Dad says, squeezing Willow’s knee. “Adorable.”
    Ugh! I move away from them, pressing up against the armrest. There’s nothing worse than parental PDA.
    “I walked out to the oak tree today,” I tell Willow, trying to ignore the dreamy look in Dad’s eye.
    Willow raises an eyebrow. “That was brave of you. I see you survived.”
    “Yeah. It’s weird, you know? There’s this sort of humming noise around it, or in it. Maybe it’s bugs, or maybe it was just thunder rumbling. I’m not sure. But I was wondering if there are any underground caves around here.”
    She thinks for a moment. “There are some in Bellevue. They’re called the Seneca Caverns, or something like that. Why?”
    I shrug. “I get the feeling there’s something underneath the tree.”
    Willow frowns. “I’m not sure I like you going near that thing.”
    “What tree?” Dad asks. He grabs the remote from Willow’s lap and changes the channel again.
    “An oak off in the cornfields,” I say. “There must be an easy way to explain the noise it makes. I just need to collect some data, come up with a hypothesis.”
    Dad taps his finger against his temple. “She’s got a science noggin,” he says to Willow. “Let her figure it out. It’ll give her something to do until school starts.”
    “I thought you were going to the Natural History Museum tomorrow,” Willow says.
    “Oh,” Dad says with a sigh and an apologetic cringe on his face. “About that.” Yep, here we go: the clearing of the throat, followed by the repentant tone of voice. “Even though I finished the sauce label, now I’m on deadline for this. They moved everything up on the production schedule.”
    “It’s okay, Dad.” For once, I’m actually glad he’s ditching me. Because now I’ve got my own agenda for tomorrow. A trip to Cleveland would eat the entire day, and I wouldn’t have the chance to get back to the tree.
    Willow pats me on the knee. “I’ll take you to that bookstore you wanted to go to.”
    “Sure,” I say. “Thanks.” I can hit the library first thing, the tree next, then go with Willow after lunch. If the bookstore has a local history and geography section, I might find some useful info there too.
    Willow snatches the remote, and just as we’re settling into a show about poisonous snakes in Africa, Dad steals it back. After two hours of watching sixty shows, two minutes each, I go upstairs and tiptoe past Kandy’s door. It’s open, but the room is quiet and dark, except for a dim light, like a night-light. I sigh, relieved. The dragon slumbers. At the hour of 8:30. Why not, I guess, when there’s nowhere to go, nothing to do. So far I haven’t met any of Kandy’s friends, and it occurs to me that she might not have any. Gee, shocker.
    I unpack the last of my clothes, organize my bookshelf some more, and arrange a lamp, a wedge of amber with an insect inclusion, a meteorite chunk, and a few framed photos on my dresser.
    First, George. He’s smiling, holding a bottle of water, wearing a backpack. The blue of the sky behind him matches the blue of his eyes. That was the day we hiked Mount Diablo. From the summit, we could see the Golden Gate Bridge.
    Next to that, the photo of my old dogs, Isaac and Galileo. They’re outside our apartment in Walnut Creek, looking through the sliding-glass door. Their ears are straight up, mischief in their eyes. When the dogs both died of cancer within a year of each other, I kept that photo under my pillow. Dad bought a frame for it before it got completely wrinkled and ruined.
    And finally, the faded, out-of-focus photo of Mom and me. Myonly photo of her, after our roof leaked years ago and ruined a closet full of keepsakes. I’m about three years old, sitting on her lap, wearing a red-gingham blouse with denim overalls. Mom’s hair is long and black; the Cherokee in her blood also asserts itself in her