AnaMaria could draw like a wizard, and she drew herself and Sofie in all kinds of clothes with all kinds of hairdos. Often, they were dancing. Sofie missed AnaMaria even though she’d only been gone two days.

  The sound of an old truck rattling down the alley made her look up. The truck stopped, a rusty door screeched open, and an old man got out—a very tall, skinny, shabby old man.

  “Gunner!” her mom cried, running to hug him. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “Con and Sofie,” she called. She gestured like she was presenting royalty. “Meet your great-granddad!”

  In Sofie’s whole life, she had never once heard of him. She looked at Con, who shrugged with his eyes.

  And why did their mom call him Gunner? That couldn’t be anybody’s name.

  A wild bush of shaggy gray hair, white whisker stubble, and faded clothing made him look like a street person. And he stared at her so long she wondered if he was frozen. Then he came to life and went back to the truck for something, which he offered to her mom with a grin.

  “Have you ever seen finer strawberries?” he asked.

  Her mom laughed and kissed him on the cheek and said thanks. She didn’t seem a bit surprised. Almost like she’d been expecting him and the strawberries.

  He grinned at Con. “You don’t remember me.”

  Con shook his head.

  “You were a little guy when I was here before.”

  Then his eyes came back to Sofie.

  She looked at her dragon book until the scarecrow and her mom walked past her into the house. He smelled moldy.

  “He’s really our great-granddad?” she said to Con.

  Con shrugged. “I guess. Mom sure seems glad to see him.”

  Later, when the scarecrow left to run an errand, her mom told Con and Sofie he would be staying with them for a while. “Until he gets on his feet.”

  “Why isn’t he on his feet?” Con asked.

  Her mom’s neck turned pink. “Why isn’t anybody? Gunner is a good man. You kids will love him.” She touched Sofie’s hair. “For now, Sofie, would you let him use your room?”

  What was wrong with her mom? “No. Where would I sleep?”

  “I was hoping you could share the attic with Connie. It won’t be for long.”

  “No way.” Con was shaking his head. “I need my privacy.”

  Their mom sighed. “I know it’s asking a lot. But Gunner saved my life once. When you were a baby, Con. And I think I saved him too.”

  If things had been so great, why had he left?

  Her mom was looking at her, reading her mind. “We don’t need to bother him with a lot of questions,” she said. “He’s family.”

  No. He was not. Family was the three of them. Her. Her mom. And Con. Her mom had always said Sofie and Con didn’t have dads because they didn’t need them. The three of them stuck together and life was fine. And there was no room for a smelly old man. What was her mom thinking?

  chapter 3

  A wave of thunder rattled the house. Dim morning light came through the attic window. Sofie sensed Con stirring on the other side of the sheet he’d strung down the middle of the attic for privacy. The attic was very hot and stuffy, but Sofie had loved falling asleep the last five nights close enough to touch her brother. But she still didn’t want that scarecrow in her room, because it was just wrong.

  She sat up. “What time is it?”

  “Ten forty.”

  Her mom would have left for work because she had the early shift.

  Wind slammed rain against the window. Probably her mom was getting soaked on the way to work.

  Con headed downstairs, pulling on a T-shirt. With every big rain, water leaked through the kitchen ceiling, even though their mom had told the landlord about it a hundred thousand times. Sofie hurried to follow. She knew the drill.

  While Con used ragged towels and his feet to mop up puddles, she found two pans to catch the worst drips. A drop landed in her hair and tickled its way through to her scalp.

  Out the back door she saw that the old scarecrow’s truck wasn’t parked in its place in the alley.

  “Where do you think he goes all the time?”

  Con shrugged. “He could be taking Mom to work.”

  Maybe he could be. This time. But what about the other times when he jumped up and went off without a word? And why was Connie always pointing out good things about the old guy?

  “But don’t you wonder why he acts so weird sometimes? And why he just appeared out of nowhere?”

  And why the scarecrow man and her mom were so close. That was what really annoyed Sofie. The way they told stories about people Sofie didn’t know. The way they made each other laugh. The way her mom cried and leaned against him for comfort. Sofie really didn’t like that. He needed to get out of their life before he broke something.

  She knew Connie had his doubts too. She saw how watchful he was when the scarecrow was around. But the scarecrow was watchful too. Actually, Sofie thought they were kind of alike that way. Yesterday, Con had told her he’d seen the scarecrow without his shirt and realized he was really tan on his face, neck, and arms. And he had a lot of muscles for an old guy.

  As if thinking about him had conjured him, the truck shuddered to a stop in the alley. She sighed.

  He came in dripping, putting down bags and brushing rain off his clothes.

  “What’s up?” he said, looking from one to the other.

  Con shrugged, finishing his mopping. “Not much. What’s up with you?”

  “Took your mom to work.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  Sofie shot Con a look. He shouldn’t be so nice. It encouraged the scarecrow to stay.

  He began unpacking bread and cheese, cans of tomato soup, a box of tea bags, and fresh fruit. Today it was strawberries and apples. He ate more fresh fruit than anybody Sofie had ever known, and was always offering it to her and Connie and their mom as if grapes were precious rubies and bananas were bars of gold.

  He set a sack of doughnuts on the table. “For you kids.”

  The smell curling out of the bag almost made her reach for it. The doughnuts were from the place downtown. She loved to stand outside the front window and watch them ride along on the belt until they tumbled into the bubbling oil, then came out all plump and golden and got showered with cinnamon and sugar.

  Her jaws ached for a bite.

  “I thought Sofie liked doughnuts,” the scarecrow said as she went to her mom’s room where she could eavesdrop without having to see the doughnut bag.

  “She’ll probably eat one later. She’s crabby in the morning.”

  She was not. He talked about her like she was a baby.

  Through the thin wall, she heard the rattle of the sack. She wiped the corner of her mouth. This was not fair.

  Could she hear them chewing, or was it her imagination? It was probably the rain, which had almost quit.

  “What’s that you’re reading?”

  “A book my old fifth-grade teacher gave me. He works at the Community Center in the summer. He liked it when he was my age.”

  Sofie knew Con was talking about Mr. Bloom. She heard the scarecrow man laugh.

  “What?” Con said

  “The title of the book is Holes and we’re eating doughnuts.”

  After a beat, Con said, “Yeah.”

  At least he hadn’t laughed. Sofie was glad for that.

  “My ex-wife Donna was a reader. You and Sofie remind me of her with all your books.”

  Donna was the great-grandmother who sent a big box of presents from California every year. Sofie and Con had never met her. Their mom had never met her either, but they all knew she was mean.

  There was money in the Christmas boxes, but the rest was a lot of fancy useless stuff, according to their mom. Sofie remembered the year Donna sent a beautiful, soft little blanket for each of them. Sofie had rubbed hers against her cheeks, eager to curl up on the couch and read, wrapped comfily in its softness. But their mom had snorted at the silliness of something so fancy it had to be dry-cleaned. Like they could ever afford dry-cleaning. That would be like throwing money in the fire and watching it burn. Sofie had hated putting her wonderful blanket back in its wrapping.

  And one year, Donna sent cheese and crackers. Con and Sofie could see through the clear plastic window on the box that the crackers inside had mouse turds on them. Their mom said those weren’t actually mouse turds, but who could be sure? They shoved them in the sell-online pile, but Sofie knew no one would buy them.

  Then there was the three-thousand-piece Harry Potter Hogwarts puzzle that they got all excited about until Con noticed it would be 45 inches wide and 32 inches long when it was put together. Their table didn’t have room. Sold online.

  Even though her mom insisted Donna was mean, Sofie thought the things in the Christmas boxes were wonderful—not the crackers with the mouse turds, those must have been a mistake. But the gifts just weren’t for their family.

  Then last Christmas came the chess set, which she and Connie had hidden, and he was teaching her how to play.

  “Our older kids were like Donna,” the scarecrow was saying. “Like you and Sofie. Born holding books. But when Summer came along, she was like me. Donna and I said she was our Indian Summer.”

  Sofie’s eyes flashed to the framed photo of sixteen-year-old Summer, so beautiful and famous, that sat on a small table against the wall. A candle in a pretty green glass container sat beside the photo. When her mom lit the candle, light flickered like sunshine through trees. Summer had died when Con was a baby.

  Sofie took the velvet keepsake box off her mom’s dresser and sat cross-legged on the silky sheets that smelled like her mom. The keepsake box had belonged to Summer.

  Con and Sofie and their mom had looked through the keepsake box so often their fingers had worn away the velvet in places. Sofie picked through the jumble of old photos, matchbooks, charms. A diary Sofie had given her mom that her mom never wrote in. A necklace with a broken chain. Her and Connie’s hospital bracelets were near the top, and further down was their mom’s, cracked and yellowed. Sofie rubbed her fingers over the smooth brown nut that made her think of a petrified eyeball. There was a menu from a fancy restaurant where Summer Jones had eaten with movie people. A sparkly clip-on earring in the shape of a starfish.

  She still heard Con and the scarecrow talking, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. Maybe they were sitting on the porch. She looked out the window. The rain had stopped and the light was getting brighter.

  Near the bottom of the box, she found the snapshot of Summer that always made Sofie’s mom tear up. Her grandmother was thirty-four and her mom was seventeen in the photo. Their arms were around each other and their heads together. They looked like very beautiful sisters.

  Sofie could hear her mom saying what she always said when she looked at the photograph: It was the last time we had our picture taken together. Two weeks later, she got in a car with a friend. A beautiful, soft snow was falling.

  Sofie shivered. A person would know it was the last time only when it was too late. The fear of seeing her own mom for the last time nibbled around the edges of her thoughts. Once, after the worst boyfriend ever had broken Con’s arm and gone to jail, she and Connie had been left alone in the trailer for a whole week, terrified their mom would never come back. Terrified they had seen her for the last time when she went off to a New Year’s Eve party looking so beautiful and hopeful and smelling so nice.

  Sofie dropped the photo back into the box like it was dangerous.

  chapter 4

  That night, her mom came home from the early shift bringing Lili and her sister and her sister’s boyfriend. Everybody was already loud and happy.

  Sofie saw the worried look on the old scarecrow’s face. She could tell he didn’t like her mom’s friends, and they ignored him like an old mummy in the corner.

  Lili called Sofie over, the way she’d done a hundred times before, and told her to shut her eyes and hold out her hand. Sofie knew Lili was going to put something special on Sofie’s palm and close Sofie’s fingers around it. Sometimes it was hair barrettes still on their card or a square of candy wrapped in foil or gum or a tiny plastic animal of some kind.

  “You got the cutest kids on the planet, Ash,” Lili said.

  Lili’s fingers brushed Sofie’s palm as she laid something there. Lili smelled of beer and pot, and before long, Sofie knew, Lili would either be turning up the music and dancing like a wild woman or totally crashed in the corner. That was Lili. High or low.

  “Open your eyes,” Lili said.

  Sofie looked at what she held in her hand. Lipstick? She looked at Lili.

  “Well, you’re growing up,” Lili said, shrugging one shoulder.

  No, she wasn’t. She was going to be in fifth grade. That was nowhere near grown up. She didn’t really want to be a grown-up. Not the way Lili was talking about.

  “Won’t be long until you have boyfriends.”

  She would never have a boyfriend. They were the worst.

  Lili smiled at Sofie’s mom. “Just like your pretty mama. She started young.”

  Con’s face turned red and he seemed to grow another inch. “Come on, Sof. Let’s go.” He motioned toward the attic door.

  The scarecrow watched, looking worried.

  Sofie had been propped on her elbows trying to read for what felt like hours. She held a flashlight in a sweaty hand and pointed it at her book. The attic was so hot and sticky. The thudding music from downstairs made the floor of the attic quiver against her belly. She felt like she was inside a drum.

  Where was the scarecrow? She’d hadn’t heard him leave over the noise of the party, but she’d seen the look on his face—like he couldn’t get away fast enough. Like something was chasing him and it was so close he could feel its breath.

  Over the bass line that shook the house, she heard the sudden sharp Rherr! Rherr! of a police siren. She and Con scrambled to the window as red and blue lights swept the front yard.

  The music stopped.

  She told herself if they stood absolutely still, barely breathing, no matter how long it took, nothing bad would happen. Her heartbeat drummed in her ears. Bad boyfriends, social workers, and the police always meant trouble.

  After a long time of hearing her mom’s voice now and then and her laugh once, and the voices of the police, Sofie—finally—heard car doors shut. The spinning lights stopped. The police car pulled away. Her mom had worked her magic on the cops.

  She flopped down on her pallet and heard Con settle on his. It didn’t seem safe to speak even yet.

  Finally, she picked up the flashlight. She was reading The Paper Dragon again for the third time. The words were easy enough, but really understanding how a poor artist could save his village from the biggest, fiercest fire-breathing dragon imaginable needed to be thought about. At the beginning of the book, the dragon was huge in the illustrations and the artist was very small and bowed. But at the end, the dragon had become a small paper dragon.

  Sofie was deciding maybe the story wasn’t about getting eaten by a dragon, but about people loving and taking care of each other, even when they were scared.

  Her flashlight dimmed and went out.

  She smacked it against her palm. Nothing. She’d been using it the last three nights, and the batteries were dead.

  She couldn’t just shut her eyes and go to sleep after the police had been there.

  She lifted the sheet. “Connie.”

  “What?”

  “My batteries died.”

  “I’ll turn on the light.”

  The light was a bare bulb with a chain pull that hung from a rafter too high for her to reach.

  “No. It hurts my eyes and I can’t read by it.”

  She knew she sounded whiny, but if she couldn’t escape into a story she didn’t know what she’d do.

  She scooted under the sheet to his side. Being very close in the darkness made her think of the bolt hole in the trailer.

  That was where they lived with Jonah, the worst boyfriend. He beat their mom, and they weren’t big enough to stop him. So when he came back to the trailer all jittery and loud and mad at everybody, their mom shot them that Get out of here! look. And they ran for the closet like a pair of meerkats and Connie blocked the sliding door with a screwdriver.

  That was where she’d learned to read, pressed against Con’s side, his breath on her cheek. In between boxes and the vacuum, using the flashlight that they kept hidden in the closet, whispering, Connie taught her to read his Magic Tree House books.

  Jack and Annie were really Con and her. The kids on the cover even looked kind of like them. As they had wonderful adventures Sofie learned to recognize and sound out words. She hardly heard Jonah’s angry bellowing or felt the trailer shaking when their mom got slammed into the wall.

  “You want to watch a movie on my phone, Meerkat?” Con asked, as if he’d been remembering the same thing.

  She couldn’t think of anything in the world she’d rather do.

  They bent over the phone together. She wasn’t paying attention to the movie, and she didn’t think Con was either. Gradually the house got quieter. Then quiet.

  She was so tired. She scooted under the sheet and stretched out on her pallet and took a breath so deep it made her dizzy. Connie was rustling on his side of the sheet.

  He touched her shoulder. “I’m going for a walk,” he whispered.

  “Now?”

  “Yeah. I have to. Come with me.”

  She sat up. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “Come on, Sof. I’ll keep you safe.” He said it like a grown-up.

  He was a blob against the pale light of the window. He was taking the screen out of the window. Wait. They were going out the window?

  Maybe she was dreaming.

 

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