Emmy and the Home For Troubled Girls by Lynne Jonell Read Free Book Online

room at the Antique Rat.
    At first glance, the Antique Rat had seemed to be just an old furniture store with an apartment on the upper story. But the back room had once held cage upon cage of rodents, each with its own special power, and each one extremely valuable. Cheswick Vole (formerly an assistant to the famous Professor of Rodentology, Dr. Maxwell Capybara) had shrunk the professor, stolen the rats, and used them to try to get rich. And now that Cheswick had turned into a rat himself and run away with Miss Barmy, Professor Capybara ran the shop and lived in the apartment above it.
    The professor was a brilliant rodentologist, and since he was full-sized again, he had gone back to his research. But even he couldn’t change the years Sissy had spent in a cage, with no opportunity to learn much of anything.
    â€œI didn’t know Sissy could read and write,” said Emmy.
    Raston straightened. “She can’t,” he admitted. “But she can repeat short messages, and … well, she deserves a chance just like anybody else, don’t you think?”
    â€œOf course,” Emmy said.
    â€œIt’s not her fault that she’s uneducated. It’s not her fault that she hasn’t had my advantages. She’d like to be smooth and sophisticated, like me …”
    Emmy rolled her eyes.
    â€œI have an idea! Take me sailing! I’ll tell her about it and expand her horizons!”
    â€œYou’re not coming,” Emmy said flatly, and went to brush her teeth. By the time she had clattered downstairs for breakfast, put on sunscreen, found her sandals, and run back up to get the life jacket she’d forgotten, the Rat had disappeared.
    Emmy shrugged. So maybe he’d taken her advice; or maybe he was hiding somewhere, sulking. Either way, she had one less rodent to worry about.
    To Emmy’s surprise, Thomas was sitting on the back step.
    â€œMy mom said I could come here if I promised notto go up in the tree fort alone.” He lifted a hopeful face. “Would you play pirates with me?”
    Emmy shook her head with regret, wishing she didn’t have to go with Mr. Peebles. It would be bad enough to watch the other girls having fun sailing—but now that she had disappointed both Ratty and Thomas, she would feel guilty the whole time.
    Thomas trailed after her and sat on the wooden dock, swinging his pudgy legs. Emmy explained about the race, and was relieved to see that Thomas didn’t seem to mind too much.
    â€œThis isn’t as boring as Joe’s soccer game,” he said, peering into the water beneath the dock. “There are minnows down there, and snails, and everything! I’ll just play here till you come back.”
    â€œCan you swim?”
    â€œI’m in Guppies,” Thomas said proudly. “Last week I ducked my head underwater before anyone else in the class.”
    Emmy sighed. Guppies was only the second class after Tadpoles, and four classes below Dolphins, which she had just passed. There was no way she could leave Thomas to play by the lakeshore with a clear conscience.
    Emmy trudged across the lawn to her back door. “Mrs. Brecksniff? Oh, Maggie. Would you please tell Mrs. Brecksniff that Joe’s little brother is here playing on the dock? I’m leaving when Mr. Peebles comes, so could someone watch him?”
    A blue-and-white boat was motoring up past the point. Emmy trotted back to the shore where she had left her life jacket and stopped to watch Thomas as he squatted by the rushes, collecting pebbles and snails. He looked up happily. “Did you know that every time you throw a rock in the water the minnows all swim away? And then they come back, and you can do it all over again?”
    â€œThere goes my minnow pie for the second day in a row!” roared a hoarse voice, and a blunt, furry face popped out from between the cattails and snarled.
    â€œNow, Marshall,” came a placating voice from the rushes,