Shadowkiller by Wendy Corsi Staub Read Free Book Online Page A

feathers, and a network of strings that looked like a spider’s web?
    â€œIt’s a dream catcher,” Daddy told her. “I bought it at the reservation.”
    The reservation, she knew, was where the Native Americans lived. Sometimes, Daddy stopped there on the way home from a trip to get gas and cigarettes, and once in a while he’d bring her something from the store there. Usually, he just liked to give her books as presents, because he wanted her to be smart, but when he went to the reservation he came back with other things. A leather coin purse. A beaded bracelet. A dark-braided little doll in a pouch, whose name, she mistakenly thought he said, was Papoose. She thought it was nice that Daddy had bothered to give the doll a name.
    Later, she found out that “papoose” was a Native American word for “child.” By that time, the name had stuck. She carried Papoose with her everywhere for a long time, until one day, she disappeared, along with lots of other toys.
    She searched frantically, and when Daddy came back from his trip she asked him if he’d seen Papoose. His response was simply that she was too old for dolls.
    That was untrue.
    â€œI’ll never be too old for dolls,” she told him. “Never.”
    â€œYes, you will. Someday, you’ll be all grown up. And grown-ups don’t play with dolls.”
    â€œThen I’m not going to grow up. I’m going to stay this way forever.”
    â€œThat’s a stupid thing for a smart girl to say,” Daddy said, and she cringed. She hated it when he said that.
    â€œWhat do I do with this?” she asked, trying not to show her disappointment when he gave her the dream catcher.
    â€œCome on, I’ll show you.”
    Daddy climbed up on a chair and hung it in the window of her purple and white bedroom. “There. Only good dreams can get through that web. Nothing scary.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œReally.”
    He’d been right about that. Every night before she fell asleep, she looked at it hanging there in the glow of her nightlight, and she told it to catch all the nightmares about falling down a dark well.
    So far, it had.
    But that didn’t mean she was ready to leave the swing set and go home to bed—with or without reading Tikki Tikki Tembo . She wasn’t ready to say good-bye to Daddy again just yet.
    She flailed her legs, pumping futilely in the air. “I want to swing a little longer. Just a couple more pushes? Please?”
    Sometimes, he gave in when she begged for something.
    Not usually, though.
    She had a feeling he wouldn’t tonight. He was in a hurry to get going. She could sense his impatience; had noticed him looking at his watch during dinner: hamburgers, fries, and milk shakes served by a carhop at Eddie’s, their favorite drive-in restaurant out on the highway. People kept saying the old place was going to close any day now, but she hoped it wouldn’t. She liked to go to Eddie’s because it was where Daddy used to take her mother on dates when they were boyfriend and girlfriend.
    That was a long time ago, in the sixties, long before she was ever born.
    Sometimes, when she went to Eddie’s with Daddy, she saw teenagers there together—boys and girls, kissing in the car while they waited for their food to be brought to the window. She imagined her parents doing that when they were young, and it made her happy inside, and sad, too. Because now that they were husband and wife, they didn’t ever kiss each other. Sometimes, they didn’t even talk to each other—and when they did, it wasn’t in a nice way. She couldn’t even remember a time when her parents didn’t fight a lot.
    Remember . . . what is it? What am I supposed to remember?
    After dinner tonight, Daddy used the pay phone outside Eddie’s. Then he said he had to get going right away, but she convinced him to stop here at the playground behind a