Secrets of Foxworth by V.C. Andrews Read Free Book Online Page A

something?”
    My father stopped eating. “What?”
    â€œIt could be in there is all I’m saying. I’m not saying I read it yet. He did write early in the pages that his little brother suffered a horrible death.”
    â€œHow horrible? What does he say happened to him?”
    â€œI don’t know yet, Dad. Maybe he really was poisoned; maybe it was something worse.”
    He sat back. I could see I already had revealed too much, but as my mother often said, “Words are like toothpaste. Once they come out, you can’t put them back in.”
    â€œI don’t like this. Now you’re scaring me. You gonna go and have nightmares after this?”
    â€œI don’t have nightmares. Stop being a worrywart,” I said, which was another one of his own expressions. I asked my English teacher what it meant, and he told me with a shrug that it just meant someone who worried so much he caused others to do the same. “It’s just . . . a diary.”
    â€œA diary written by a kid kept locked up in an attic of a nuthouse for more than three years,” Dad said. “Madness is madness no matter how you cut it. Maybe he’s making it all up, including the way his brother died.”
    â€œI’m not going to go crazy reading it, Dad. Will you stop?”
    â€œYou let me know when you’re finished with it.”
    â€œWhy? Will you burn it or something?”
    â€œJust let me know, and don’t ask so many questions, or I’ll take away your what, who, where, why, and how.”
    We stared at each other a moment, and then we both smiled. The world I was about to enter through this diary was so unlike mine. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how a grandmother would so harm her own grandchildren, but I was just beginning the diary. It wouldn’t be long before I would find out the truth.
    Maybe.
    Maybe at the end, I would discover that Christopher never knew himself. The diary could simply be his attempt to get to know himself, and perhaps he was writing what he thought he should and not what he knew to be true. Reading it would be like taking a ride to see someone who wasn’t there. Dad was always telling me to consider my time the most valuable asset I had. “Try to spend it wisely. A minute lost can’t be made up like you can make up a dollar lost,” he lectured. “I don’t mean you shouldn’t relax and have fun, but try to make it worth something.”
    I cleaned up the lunch dishes. Dad went into the living room to watch a basketball game. He called to me when he heard me starting for my room.
    â€œKristin?”
    â€œYes, Dad?”
    â€œI’m serious. Don’t you go blabbin’ about that diary.”
    â€œI promise. I won’t. Stop worrying about it.”
    â€œI don’t like your reading it. I should have paid more attention when you told me what it was,” he mumbled, but I didn’t reply.
    I didn’t charge up the stairs, but I didn’t walk up slowly, either.
    Moments later, I was reading again, but now, after the concern Dad had exhibited at lunch, I couldn’t help being nervous about it. I knew the power of the written word, how too often people were influenced by something they read and how it changed their behavior. As Mr. Feldman, one of my English teachers,would tell us, “If reading wasn’t so important and influential, why would they ban books in dictatorships?”
    Nevertheless, nothing would stop me from turning these pages, I thought, and began again.
    Our lives are full of secrets. Cathy likes to think love is what floats about the most in our home. She thinks this way because she listens in on our parents talking to each other whenever she can. I see how she does it. She pretends to be busy with something and not be paying attention, but she’s hanging on their every word, especially the way they express how much they love each other. I know when