Secrets 01 Secrets in the Attic by V. C. Andrews Read Free Book Online Page A

nothing extra that was really important. Harry was a solution, so I don't blame her. I don't!"
She was contradicting herself.
She blamed her mother. She would always blame her mother for bringing Harry into their lives.
I pedaled to her house in record time. After my discussion with my mother, I was driven to delve deeper into Karen's problems, and I was just dying to know whether or not she had fallen in love with a boy in our school without my knowing. Was she pining over him because he had rejected her? Was that why she was crying the other night?
I dropped my bike on the Pearson lawn and hurried up the steps to ring the doorbell. I waited, but no one came to the door, so I went over to the livingroom window. I saw a small lamp lit by the sofa, but no one was there. I returned to the front door and rang again and waited, the disappointment dripping through me. Where was Karen? Like me, she had no after-school activities. She hadn't mentioned meeting anyone or going anywhere that day. We had come home together on the bus as usual, and she had left saying, "Talk to you later." Had she gone off to have some rendezvous with this mysterious boyfriend I was imagining?
We spoke to each other on the phone at night, but not that often. She told me her stepfather wouldn't put in another phone line for her and forbade her to tie up their line for longer than two minutes. She said he would actually time it by calling the house periodically to check, and if she violated the rule, he would forbid her ever to use the phone, even for a minute, and would permit no incoming calls for her.
Discouraged now, I turned and walked slowly back to my bike. Just as I picked it up, however, Karen's mother drove in. She rolled down her car window and called out to me.
"Hi, Zipporah."
"Hi," I said, and before she could continue into the garage, I asked, "Where's Karen?"
"Karen? She should be home," she said. "Why? She didn't answer the door?"
"No."
"Just a moment," she said,
She looked upset, parked, the car, and came out of the garage quickly.
"She didn't tell me she had anything to do after school. Is she in detention or something like that?" she asked, the fury coming into her eyes in preparation.
"No, Mrs. Pearson. We came home on the bus together."
"You did? Oh. Well, let's see what's going on," she said, and went to the front door, dug the key out of her purse, and opened it.
I wasn't sure what I should do but decided to put my bike down again and follow her.
"Karen!" she called from the entryway. "Karen, are you here?"
She looked back at me and smirked, but then we heard Karen's voice.
"Yes, I'm here."
"Well, what are you doing? Zipporah has been ringing the doorbell."
"I didn't hear it," Karen said, but she didn't come down the stairs to greet me.
"Well, do you want your friend to go up to see you or not?" her mother asked.
"Not now," Karen said.
Mrs. Pearson turned to me and shrugged.
"You heard her. Sorry. You teenage girls are a different species these days, Zipporah. I can't keep up with the mood changes. Talk to her tomorrow."
"Thanks, Mrs. Pearson," I said. I tried to get a glimpse of Karen, but she was already back in her room.
"Say hello to your parents for me," Karen's mother called as I walked back to my bike. I turned and saw her smile and close the door.
She was a pretty woman, who, despite being older than Mr. Pearson, looked younger.
"Darlene Pearson is the sort of woman who will never look her age," my mother once told me. I could hear the underlying tone of jealousy. "She doesn't have to do anything but get up in the morning. Her skin will look like the skin of a teenager right into her sixties and seventies, and her hair will be thick and rich no matter what. The genetic pool," she added.
"What's that?"
"She inherited everything."
"Everything but good luck," my father commented. He often would sit and look as if he was reading a brief or a book and suddenly raise his eyes and reveal he was listening closely to everything my