Steemjammer: Through the Verltgaat Read Online Free

prison!”
    Stridently loyal to the public school system, Waverly despised home-schooling and had lobbied hard against it. The only donations she’d ever made in her life were to a political organization dedicated to ending the practice.
    “Now you’ve done it,” she said, rubbing her temples. “You’ve given me another migraine.”
    “I think knitting those thingies is what’s giving you headaches,” he said. “That and worrying about everything.”
    And constantly correcting everyone, he tactfully decided not to add.
    “These are doilies ,” she corrected, jabbing at him with a long steel needle as if it were a fencing foil, “not ‘thingies.’ And as any idiot could tell, this is purling, not knitting.”
    Her aged mother, Agnes Finch, who sat in her favorite armchair, also worked on a doily. She’d recently suffered a stroke but could hear, think and move just fine. The only harm it had done was to take away her ability to speak. She rolled her eyes and went off in disgust.
    “I think Agnes was knitting,” Ron said.
    Waverly answered with a ball of yellow yarn, thrown at his forehead hard enough to actually sting a little.
     
    ***
     
    “I guess he’s really gone,” Angelica said.
    They’d just finished another search of Beverkenhaas and found nothing, not one clue. Will was worried sick but tried not to let it show. He knew his sister was doing her best to be strong, but he feared she wouldn’t hold up much longer. Three days had passed with no sign of their father.
    “Did you see him go?” she asked.
    Will shook his head. Hendrelmus often vanished, but they never saw him exit a door or sneak out a window. This time, between finishing lessons on an outdoor picnic table and doing chores, they’d had a pretty good view of the street. Unless he could turn invisible, Will thought, his dad hadn’t left that way. How did he do it?
    Usually he was gone no more than a few hours, but sometimes he vanished for a whole day. Then, they’d discover him making a sandwich or repairing some gadget, as if nothing had happened. Never had he warned them he was leaving or said where he’d been.
    “You have to be on your nose all the time,” he’d lectured, meaning “toes.” “You have to be ready for anything.”
    When his dad hadn’t returned after 24 hours, Will grew worried. That night, he’d had a horrible dream about being lost in a strange place with no sense of up or down, left or right. When he’d seen a possible way out, his body refused to move that direction.
    Then, he’d realized he was dreaming not about himself but his father. Henry called out for help in weak and extremely diminished voice, which alarmed Will, because he’d never heard him sound so scared. He decided it was just a stupid nightmare and not to tell Angelica.
    They’d just have to do their best until their dad came back, Will thought. Surely he’d return! Was it legal for kids to live without a parent? What would happen if people found out?
     
    ***
     
    Another day passed, and there was still no sign of their father. Without him to help run the complex machinery, they’d shut down many non-essential systems, and even then, they felt overwhelmed. The dishwasher, for example, ran continually, as Will didn’t know how to turn it off. As he looked for a wrench, a high pitched scream came from upstairs.
    “Will!” his sister shouted. “Hurry!”
    He raced up and burst into Angelica’s bedroom, where she pointed out the window. He ran over and looked down into the yard. Except for a few chickens and goats, nothing caught his eye.
    “I don’t see anything,” he said.
    “There was a man,” she said excitedly, “in a bright green coat, and he was peeking in our downstairs windows!”
    “Green coat?”
    “And a leather cap. I wish I hadn’t screamed, or you would have seen him. He got scared and ran.”
    Will wasn’t sure what to say. Had a man in a green coat really been peeking in their windows, he wondered, or