Some Kind of Happiness Read Online Free Page A

girl.
    â€œToo many questions,” he grumbled, “and not enough answers.”
    The orphan girl thanked him and continued south, down the forest road. The next day she bought an apple from a farmer.
    â€œYou’re not going to the Everwood, are you?” asked the farmer.
    â€œOf course I am,” the orphan girl replied.
    The farmer shook her head. “Then you’re a fool. People who go in there don’t come out.”
    This did not particularly trouble the orphan girl, for she had no one to leave behind.
    â€œI thank you for the warning,” she said, and continued down the road.
    On the third day the orphan girl came to the forest’s edge. A witch sat high in the trees, knitting dreams.
    â€œLooking for something?” the witch asked, peering down from her perch.
    â€œAdventure,” the orphan girl answered promptly.
    The witch’s smile was full of holes. “Then you’ve come to the right place.”
    The orphan girl felt a tiny fear. A thread of darkness hissed in the witch’s voice.
    But a tiny fear was easy enough to push aside. The orphan girl was used to ignoring feelings that pained her.
    So she thanked the chuckling witch, clenched her fists, and pushed through the brambles into darkness.

5

    â€œW HAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN here?”
    I jump to my feet and whirl around. Gretchen stands a few steps behind me, staring.
    At least she isn’t Grandma. Or Avery, who watched me at dinner last night like I was a puzzle for her to decipher.
    Avery’s hair makes me nervous. Unless it’s in a shampoo advertisement, hair should not be that shiny.
    â€œHello?” Gretchen waves her hand in front of my face. “Earth to Finley?”
    â€œOh. Hi.”
    â€œHi. What are you doing out here?”
    â€œUm. Nothing?”
    â€œIs that a question?”
    My face grows hot. “No. I was just looking around. I woke up early. I was afraid of using the wrong fork at breakfast.”
    Gretchen stands beside me on the riverbank. “Don’t worry about the forks thing. Avery says that’s one of the Hart family pretensions. It’s not something that matters in the real world.”
    â€œThe real world?”
    â€œThe world outside Hart House.” She squints at me. “Do you know what pretension means?”
    A black-and-white grid flashes before my eyes, and I hear Dad’s voice mumbling over the Sunday New York Times crossword. Thinking of his voice feels like someone has reached inside me and twisted.
    Pretension. Ten-letter-word for “snobbery, a claim to importance. ”
    It can also mean “false.”
    â€œIt’s like when you’re snobby about something,” I explain.
    â€œOh. Okay. Yeah, I get that.” Gretchen puts her hands on her hips and faces the woods. “So you’re just out here looking at everything?”
    â€œYeah, I guess.” My mouth feels like a machine that isn’t quite working. “It’s pretty out here.”
    â€œHuh. I never really thought about it.”
    Gretchen plops down onto the riverbank. I sit beside her, prepared to run if need be. She did kick me under the table last night, after all.
    â€œI can’t believe you came out here by yourself,” Gretchen says.
    â€œYou never go out to the woods?”
    â€œGrandma’s never forbidden it, exactly, but she doesn’t like us being out here where she can’t really see us. Mostly when we come over, we help her clean the house.”
    â€œThat doesn’t sound very fun.”
    â€œIt’s not. But Grandma likes things to look nice. So it’s like we all come over, and the aunts sit in the kitchen and drink, and Grandma puts us kids to work. She’s all ‘you mustlearn to respect what you have’ and ‘people expect us to look a certain way.’ ”
    I giggle. She does a pretty good Grandma voice.
    â€œSo what do you like about it?” she asks.