The Power of Un Read Online Free Page B

carnival. I figured I’d better phone him as soon as I finished dinner. I grabbed a hunk of bread and used it to soak up the last of my stew.
    “Roxy, hurry up and finish. It’s almost time to go,” I said with my mouth full.
    Roxy crossed her arms and slouched in her chair. She’d hardly eaten anything. “I don’t wanna go,” she said.
    “
Wha-a-t
?” I stopped with a piece of bread halfway between the table and my face. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. I was beginning to think this might be the worst day of my life. “What’s the matter now? You love the carnival. It’s going to be lots of fun!”
    “No it won’t. You and Ash’ll make me go on the scary rides.”
    I sighed. That settled one question. We were going to spend the night on the baby rides. “No we won’t,” I said.
    “Promise?”
    “Promise.”
    “Cross your heart and hope to die, stick a needle in your eye?”
    “All right, already! I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
    She smiled, picked up her spoon, and started eating.
    While she finished dinner, I phoned Ash and broke the news to him. He wasn’t happy, but what could he do? It was either put up with Roxy or go to the carnival by himself. He agreed to meet us at the edge of the woods.
    I got my baseball jacket and a sweater for Roxy. Then I grabbed a flashlight and a house key from the kitchen drawer, took Roxy by the hand, and locked up behind us.
        The farther we got from the friendly glow of the porch light, the tighter Roxy held on to me. “How come we’re meeting Ash by the woods instead of at his house?” she said in a small, shaky voice.
    “I just want to spend a few minutes looking for something I dropped there this afternoon,” I said. “It’s perfectly safe.”
    “Nuh-uh! What about that creepy guy? What if he gets us?”
    I gave her hand a little tug. My patience was getting threadbare. “Will you stop being such a worrywart? First of all, that guy wasn’t creepy. He was actually kind of nice. And second, he’s not there anymore!”
    As the woods came into sight, she said, “I wish we had a dog. A big dog, like Old Yeller or Lassie. With big, fat teeth. A dog that’d scare that creepy guy so bad he’d have to wear diapers.”
    I almost laughed. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m bigger than Lassie.” I did my imitation of a growling, barking dog, and Roxy giggled, which I took as a good sign.
    When we got to the woods, Ash wasn’t there yet. I told Roxy she could either wait for him out by the street or come with me into the woods. Instead of answering, she started to cry and latched on to my jacket with both hands.
    “Will you please stop being such a scaredy-cat? There’s nothing here now that isn’t here in the daytime.”
    “How do
you
know?” she said.
    I rolled my eyes again and gave up trying to reason with her. I took a step toward the dark trees—or, to be more accurate, I
tried
to take a step. Roxy clung to my jacket like a forty-pound monkey and screamed as loudly as she could.
    “Gripes!” I said. “Be quiet! Everybody in town can hear you.”
    “I don’t like this place,” she wailed. “I wanna get out of here.”
    “Roxy, how am I supposed to do anything? You’resuch a little dork!” I probably should have been more patient with her, but so many things had gone wrong since that morning, I felt crabby at the whole world.
    Roxy switched from screams to pitiful moans. “How come you’re being so mean to me? You … you dumb meanball!” She scrubbed at her eyes. Her hands had stew on them, because I’d forgotten to clean her up after dinner. “Ow!
Owowow
, I got something in my eye, it hurts, it hurts …” she howled. “I hate it here! I wanna go home!”
    I felt like kicking trees again. First Rainy Frogner, now Roxy. How come girls always thought I was mean?
    “Look, I’m sorry I called you a dork, O.K.? Don’t cry.” I tugged some of my T-shirt out from under my jacket and used it to brush