The Bell Bandit Read Online Free

floor of the woods. It was Jessie's job to snap off the spindly twigs that grew off the dead branches so that they were as straight and smooth as poles.
    When they had a dozen straight branches, Evan and Jessie leaned them up against the trunk of the tree so that they made a circle all the way around. They covered the poles with fresh pine branches, using the stiff twine that Grandma kept in the barn to lash the branches to the poles. Over the opening, they hung a waterproof tarp that could be pulled aside like a door.
    Before they had started building, Evan had made a diagram of the tepee. Jessie still had that drawing hanging on her bedroom wall back home.

    It took them two whole weeks to finish the tepee, but when they were done, they brought Grandma to see it and told her she could use it anytime she wanted. Evan had said, "This tepee will last a hundred years," and Grandma had agreed. Since then, she told Jessie that she often checked in on the tepee when she was out walking in the woods, just to make sure it was still in good shape. It was a nice place to rest, she said.
    Jessie skirted the foot of the hills until she found the Lightning Tree that marked the way. Years ago the tree had been struck by lightning, leaving it scarred and black. Jessie and Evan always used it as a marker; its one remaining stub of a branch pointed to the tepee.
    Following the direction of the branch, Jessie plunged into the woods. There was still plenty of light, even though it was late afternoon, and after a couple of minutes, Jessie could see the tepee ahead, just where it was supposed to be. She snowshoed over to it, walked once all the way around to check for holes, and then climbed inside and sat on the dry dirt floor.
    Jessie loved the tepee. It made her feel safe and warm and hidden away from the world. She lay on her back and stared up at the branches over her head.
This will never change,
she thought with satisfaction. She stayed inside for a few minutes, then crawled out of the tepee and snowshoed back to the foot of the first small hill.
    But when she began to climb the hill, she saw that she wasn't alone. A boy was cross-country skiing toward her, his head down, goggles strapped to his face. It took Jessie a minute to realize that the boy didn't see her. He was headed straight for her, and he was picking up speed as he came down the hill.
    "Hey!" she shouted. She lifted her big floppy snowshoes awkwardly and tried to back up into the woods. But the tail of one of the shoes stepped on the tail of the other one, and she ended up falling over backwards. "Hey!" she shouted again, as the boy
shooshed
straight toward her.
    "Whoa!" he said, sliding to a snowplow stop. "You don't see that every day."
    "What?" asked Jessie.
    "My name's Maxwell. Who are you?" He made a funny move, shuffling his right foot forward and leaning his weight on it, and then stepping back onto his left. It almost looked like a dance move, except that he was on skis.
    "I'm Jessie. You practically ran me over!"
    "But I didn't!" he said, doing the dance move again. "That's 'cause I'm smart!" He made a funny noise that was like a steam engine puffing on a track.
    "I wouldn't exactly call it smart," said Jessie, struggling to her feet. "But at least you didn't kill me."
    She snowshoed her way past Maxwell and started to trudge up the hill that he'd just skied down.
    "Where are you going?"
    "That way," said Jessie, pointing up the hill.
    "Can I come?"
    "I don't care," said Jessie. She didn't say it angrily. It was just the honest truth.
    Jessie noticed that Maxwell liked to talk. A lot.
    On the way up the hill, she learned that Maxwell lived in the house closest to Grandma's and that his family had just moved in before the school year started. He spent a lot of time at Grandma's house. In fact, it had been Maxwell who discovered the house on fire after Grandma had left her stove on and then gone out for a walk. He'd run home to tell his mother, and she was the one who