Invitation to a Stranger by Margaret Pearce Read Free Book Online Page A

of a family happy to live in a darkened house.
    â€œ Suppose we go back to the Horseshoe Café,” Katie suggested. “It’s Friday night again, and he might be there.”
    â€œMight not,” Ronnie retorted. “ Remember his Dad hauled him out last time. Also I promised Jeff I wouldn’t go back there.”
    â€œ So where else can we meet him?” Katie demanded. “He might know why Jasmine and her cats are the way they are.”
    â€œMight,” Ronnie agreed. Her grumpy temper lasted. She desperately wished she hadn’t promised Jeff, but she couldn’t break her promise, not even to help Jasmine. She was yawning over her homework in her bedroom when she heard Jeff arrive.
    â€œYou’re home early tonight,” she heard her mother say.
    â€œFinished early and Will and I decided on an early night,” Jeff said. “I’m crashing.”
    Ronnie took a deep breath. Of course she couldn’t break her promise, but she could ask Jeff to let her off it. She stood up and opened her door.
    â€œI want to talk to you,” she said to him as he walked past her room. “And it’s very important.”
    â€œHow important?” Jeff asked with a yawn.
    â€œIt’s about Ja sm ine.”
    Ronnie pulled Jeff into her bedroom and sat him on her chair. She spoke in a low voice and recounted all that had happened that night. How one of the twins was hung over and asleep on the porch swing, and Jasmine had vanished into the backyard hunting for her cat, and Mr. Demento denied she had been in the back yard. How she and Katie had climbed over into the back yard, and how Drake was waiting with the slumped form of Jasmine.
    â€œHe said it was dangerous for us to stay and told us to get away,” Ronnie concluded. “I want you to release me from my promise about going to the café. I want to talk to Drake and find out why was it dangerous, and who are the people he is scared of?”
    â€œHum,” Jeff said. “If he is involved in something nasty he is not going to confess all.”
    â€œThe hospital still hasn’t found out what’s wrong with Jasmine,” Ronnie reminded him.
    â€œHum,” Jeff said. “What about I talk to him?”
    â€œYou don’t like him,” Ronnie pointed out. “Why would he talk to you?”
    â€œHum,” Jeff said again. “He hasn’t been at the café since his father towed him off that night.”
    â€œ Please, Jeff,” Ronnie asked. .
    â€œYou are a good kid,” Jeff said. “I know you are worried about Jasmine, but leave everything go for another week. The hospital should have discovered what’s wrong with Jasmine by then, and you won’t need to worry about things.”
    However, by the following week, everything had changed. Ronnie’s little brother Jamie went missing!

 
    Chapter Twelve
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    The week had gone as normally as they tried to make it, but it was on the Friday afternoon the dreadful thing had happened.
    Katie was thoughtful, almost moody. Even though Ronnie explained that Drake hadn’t been at the Horseshoe Café since his father towed him out. Katie agreed with Ronnie that they wouldn’t visit Drake’s house anymore, so they didn’t even walk past it on their way home from school each night.
    Jasmine was still in the hospital having tests, and Mrs. Purdue had a pinched face and permanently red eyes. Jasmine’s brother Mike had reported that his mother spent all her time at the hospital, just sitting by Jasmine’s bed and holding her hand, and his grandmother had arrived to look after them.
    â€œOut of self-rising flour,” Mrs. Campion had muttered. “Ronnie be a good girl and race down to the supermarket and buy me some flour.”
    â€œGet Jamie to do it,” Ronnie said irritably. She had just changed out of her school clothes and was settling in front of the heater with her new