The Secret Tree Read Online Free

The Secret Tree
Book: The Secret Tree Read Online Free
Author: Natalie Standiford
Pages:
Go to
standing up, which never worked well. And he smoked a corncob pipe from the age of five, they say.”
    “That’s awfully young to start smoking,” I said, playing along.
    “Any age is too young to start smoking,” Dad said. “Take it from your doctor. Anyway, Ike made up lots of stories about himself. Some might call them lies.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like once he said a bear ran into the kitchen and ate all the mincemeat pie — when his own face was covered in molasses and pie crumbs. And once he told his father he couldn’t do chores because a monster was hiding in the chicken coop.”
    “Was there really a monster in the chicken coop?” I asked.
    “What do you think?” Dad laughed. “That’s not all. When a cinder from his pipe set fire to a haystack, he blamed a fire-breathing dragon. And when his teacher punished him for talking back in school, he said he didn’t do it — a ghost had possessed his body and forced him to sass her. His mother and father never knew when to believe him.”
    “Uh-oh.” I knew what was coming.
    “One day, Ike claimed he’d been bitten by a bat. His parents thought he was telling one of his stories. But Ikegot crazier and crazier. He flew into a rage over nothing. He threw pitchforks at people from the hayloft. He started foaming at the mouth. Finally, his father got the doctor. And the doctor said —”
    “— Ike had rabies.”
    “That’s right. There was no cure for rabies in those days. There’s no cure now, but you’ll be all right if you get vaccinated in time.”
    “Did they have the vaccine back then?” I asked.
    “They had it, but it wasn’t always easy to get,” Dad said. “Not for poor farm boys, anyway.”
    “So what happened to Ike?”
    “He went crazy and died at the tender age of twelve. They say he’s buried on that land to this day, with nothing but a rock to mark his grave.”
    “Poor Ike.”
    “Yes indeed. Poor Crazy Ike. Some say he rose from his grave and grew into a Man-Bat: part man, part bat. A monster who lives in a cave in the woods —”
    “Paul, don’t scare her like that.” Mom was standing in the doorway, listening.
    “Lennie talks about the Man-Bat all the time,” I said. “I’m used to it.”
    “I don’t want you having nightmares about Man-Bats or Crazy Ike,” Mom said.
    “Or international spies,” I added.
    “Or anything at all,” she finished.
    Dad kissed me. “Good night, Minty. See you tomorrow.”
    Mom kissed me too. “Good night, honey. Don’t stay up too late reading.”
    “I won’t,” I lied. It was summer. I considered it my duty to stay up as late as my sleepy eyes would let me.
    When I finally fell asleep, I didn’t dream of the Man-Bat, or Crazy Ike, or international spies.
    I dreamed about a goldfish swimming in a bowl all alone.

The next day, my life was one sentence different than it had been the day before. I kept looking at people I was used to seeing every day, and I wondered whether they felt that nobody loved them except their goldfish. Or if they were international spies.
    It was rainy, so Thea and Melina took us all — me, Paz, Lennie, Hugo, and Robbie — to the Oella Roller Rink. Paz looked a little pale, but her stomach was all better.
    “Did you ever figure out why it hurt so bad?” I asked.
    Paz just shook her head.
    We changed out of our sneakers and into our roller skates. We always brought our own skates instead of renting. We came to the rink so often that we had discount memberships, complete with photo ID. We stashed our membership cards in our sneakers and left them under a bench.
    Thea and Melina helped Robbie and Hugo put on their skates. “The Carters asked me to babysit again,” Thea told Melina. “It’s good money. Plus the kids arecute. Not like that nightmare Troy Rogers.” She shuddered. “I’ll never sit for him again. Not after what happened last time.”
    Last time Troy had trained his cat, Slayer, to hide on a shelf in the pantry and leap out
Go to

Readers choose

Celeste O. Norfleet

Kate Slayer

Mary Lasswell

Terry Pratchett

Katy Lee

Beth Revis