Love and Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson Read Free Book Online

you are real,” she said, feeling Birdie’s arms, cupping her cheeks with her hands. “How are you here?”
    â€œI just wanted to spend the summer at home,” Birdie said, relaxed and relieved and safe. That was when she noticed the hat shaped like an alligator sticking out of Poopie’s big black sack of a purse.
    â€œWere you guys in Florida?” she asked.
    Poopie and Walter gave each other significant looks. “Yes,” Poopie said. “Well, we can talk about it inside. Come on.”
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    Inside, they all gathered around the table in the Darlingtons’ seventies-style kitchen, where the floor dipped in the middle and the yellowed counters had scorch marks and chips. The stairs across the hallway that ascended from the edge of the kitchen to the upstairs were crooked and listed to one side. Murphy called it “The Fun House.”
    â€œThis tastes amazing,” Murphy said. They’d all gotten situated with some bread, which Poopie had made and frozen, and peach-blackberry preserves left over from last year. The house was quiet without Majestic. When Birdie had asked where she was, her dad had explained that they still needed to go get her from the kennel.
    â€œYou going to pick peaches for us this year, Murphy?” Walter asked, sopping up some jam with his toasted bread. Poopie turned to Murphy too.
    Murphy nodded. “Yeah, I was hoping….”
    Walter smiled. “We’d love to have you. You can stay in the dorms again if you want. We’ll even give you a raise.”
    Murphy grinned. They hadn’t paid her the year before. She’d been forced into it, at first, as a summer punishment.
    Birdie looked at Leeda, who was conspicuously silent, rubbingher fingers against the edge of the table. Birdie wondered if she felt left out.
    â€œWe could use you too, Leeda,” Poopie offered, “until you have to go.”
    Leeda brightened a bit.
    â€œSo where were you guys?” Birdie asked, feeling a strange sense of wariness. She wasn’t sure if it was just that she felt weird about her dad and Poopie going away together, or that she felt protective of her mom. Not that her mom cared. It had been she who’d left Birdie’s dad almost three years ago, not the other way around. Birdie glanced at the phone. She’d need to call her soon and tell her she was home.
    Poopie and her father were looking at each other again significantly. “We went to look at houses,” Walter said.
    Birdie cocked her head and squinted at them. Her first reaction was simply to think it was funny and weird that they’d go on a trip to look at houses. “Why?”
    Her dad folded his hands on the table. “Well, we had the property appraiser out a few months ago, and the foundations are in bad shape. With the caves running under the property, it’s a big mess. The ground’s too soft, and the house has sunk too far.”
    Birdie had always known about the caves running under the farm. Sometimes, when it was dead quiet in the kitchen, she swore she could hear the sound of trickling water echoing somewhere far beneath her.
    Birdie looked to Poopie, confused.
    â€œWe are selling,” Poopie said.
    Birdie felt a bunch of tiny bits inside her start to throb andmove and itch. Beside her, she felt Leeda and Murphy go completely still.
    â€œBut…” The first thing that occurred to Birdie was that her dad couldn’t have thought it all through. The decision had to have been made on a whim. The Darlingtons had fought tooth and nail for much of Birdie’s life to keep their farm. Now that they were doing well, with no huge debts lingering over their heads, they were safe. “Everything’s good now. There’s no reason to give up.”
    â€œIt’s not giving up,” Poopie interjected. “Birdie, the house needs to come down.” She stared an earnest hole through Birdie with her big brown eyes.
    Birdie