Family Reunion

Family Reunion by Caroline B. Cooney Read Free Book Online

Book: Family Reunion by Caroline B. Cooney Read Free Book Online
Authors: Caroline B. Cooney
from their beds, as if they expected the worst. But once I described us, it was clear that my family was the thing that was worst. Twelve-year-old boy, red hair, ninety pounds, ran away from home. Father out of the country, mother lives abroad, stepmother driving in the middle of the night to New York City, abandoned care of children toneighbors they scarcely know, fourteen-year-old sister left in charge fell asleep.
    “Broken family,” said the police, nodding. “New Yorkers.”
    I flushed in the darkness of our yard. I felt responsible for the moral character of all New York City.
    Mr. Frankel searched for Daddy's Montreal hotel phone number. I had Annette's cell phone number by memory, but I couldn't bear to give it out. She would be halfway there, having escaped our clutches, driving toward the salvation of her old life, and now she would be accused of abandoning her stepchildren.
    The untouched spaghetti was congealed and pasty white. The jar of sauce lay on its side, telling all the world we were the sort of people who ate out of cans and whose parents didn't leave phone numbers. The volunteers were sent to search terrifying places. The trunks of neighbors' cars. The town dump. The trash alley behind the village stores.
    DeWitt and his father and grandfather DeWitts showed up. They looked not at all alike, the grandfather tall and silvery and trim, the father short and stocky and dark, and my DeWitt just plain wonderful. Annette had been right. He was adorable. “You okay, Shelley?” he asked.
    Nobody had worried about me. Angus's situation had taken up all the worry energy. “Kind of,” I said.
    He touched my shoulder, just fingertips, just the slightestsuggestion of pressure, but I almost wept to have him there, a true ally. I did not permit myself to cry, though. It would have been unstable.
    DeWitt said, “I know this is dumb, Shell; I know it was the very first place you looked. But…you did check the bomb shelter, didn't you?”
    The following day was gray and misty. Daddy sat out on the dock talking on the phone with Annette, who seemed reluctant ever to drive back to Vermont and join us.
    I had an early breakfast, and then I also had a late breakfast while Angus taped a PBS rerun that featured a rain dance. Then he watched it seventy-five times in a row until he had it memorized.
    I e-mailed Joanna, sparing her no detail of the night before.
    We found Angus wrapped in a green army blanket I didn't know we owned, but it came with the bomb shelter. He was asleep on that army-issue cot. He was disgusted with us for being upset, and he wouldn't apologize to anybody for giving us all heart attacks. He said we should have known he was in his bomb shelter. Even one of the firemen said we should have known. The fireman's daughterturned out to be one of the ones who refused to take back her ten dollars. The fireman said now that he was getting a good look at the salesman of the time shares, he thought maybe it wasn't the survival aspect that had his daughter's attention. Of course Angus gagged and moaned at the idea that girls might enter his life in the shape of—well— girls. All the neighbors and rescuers were too wired to go home and sleep, so we partied instead. One good thing about Annette: She fell in love with the whole pantry concept. You would not believe how much snack food was sitting in that pantry, waiting for us to feed twenty people. Mrs. Frankel wouldn't serve anybody who had said anything bad about New York City, so all the Vermonters who were rude had to apologize. It turned out half of them were former New Yorkers anyway and had been feeling pretty guilty.
    Joanna answered right away.
    I am so glad I am not there. Angus is just a form of portable public humiliation. Butthere is some good news in this, and that of course is the departure and failure to return of Annette. Nobody wants Annette back, so it may turn out for the best.
    Daddy wants Annette back, I thought. And I knew that I wanted

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