A Whole Nother Story Read Free

Mr. Cheeseman and his children from many a close call, including this very night when she burst into Mr. Cheeseman’s room, jumped up onto the bed, and emitted a low growl that had become her trademark portent of doom.
    “What is it, Pinky?” Mr. Cheeseman muttered.
    “Grrrr,” Pinky answered.
    “Are you sure?”
    “Grrrrrrrr!”
    “Okay, okay.”
    Once the children were up and dressed and had packed their suitcases, Mr. Cheeseman ordered them to gather in the boys’ room and wait there while he prepared the car for their escape.

    “It’s not fair,” said Saffron as she threw a paperback book across the boys’ bedroom, bouncing it off the closet door. This may seem like an odd thing to throw considering that books are not terribly aerodynamic. She threw the book because it was the only thing she could find to throw. Just about everything else—toys, clothing, school supplies, Barton’s baseball equipment, Saffron’s archery equipment, and Crandall’s collection of dirt clods shaped like famous people—had all been packed up and loaded into the family station wagon.
    “I don’t want to move again,” Saffron continued, searching in vain for something else to throw. The only thing she could find was Crandall’s giant blob of pink, flavorless bubble gum still firmly affixed to his bedpost. Much stronger than her little brother, she yanked it from its perch and flung it across the room, where it stuck firmly to the wall about six feet above floor level.
    “Hey, that’s my gum,” Crandall protested while running across the room, dragging his suitcase behind him, as the blob had landed well above his natural reach.
    “Keep it down, you guys,” said Barton. “Dad’s got enough to worry about without listening to you fighting.”
    “How’s he going to hear us?” asked Saffron. “He’s out in the garage loading up that stupid machine.”
    “You shouldn’t say stupid ,” said Crandall as he stood on the suitcase and, with his non-sock-puppet hand, peeled the bubble gum from the wall and then popped it into his mouth. “ Stupid is a bad word.”
    “Stupid is putting something in your mouth that has been stuck to a wall,” Saffron snapped back. For a moment, no one said anything. Then Saffron sat down on the bed and dropped her face into her hands.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know why we have to move.
    I’m just tired, that’s all.”
    “We’re all tired of moving,” said Barton.
    “I liked this house,” said Crandall sadly as he sat beside his older sister. “I liked the way the driveway smelled when it rained.”
    “I liked the plum tree out back,” said Saffron.
    “I liked the fuzzy carpet,” said Steve.
    “Don’t worry,” said Barton. “I’m sure the next house will have lots of nice things about it as well.”
    “You never know,” said Saffron. “Remember the light blue house with the leaky roof and the people next door who yelled all the time? There was nothing good about that house.”
    “Yeah,” said Crandall. “And what about that old farmhouse that got so cold at night and made those creepy noises?”
    “At least we were only there for six weeks,” Barton reminded him.
    The bedroom door popped open and Mr. Cheeseman walked in with Pinky on his heels. “Okay, gang. Let’s move out.”
    Saffron gave her reflection in the bedroom window one last glance and decided her hair looked good enough for the purposes of escaping under cover of darkness. Her brothers, on the other hand, seemed to have no interest whatsoever in how their hair looked.
    Barton at least had the decency to put on a baseball cap so his sheeply mass of black curls only stuck out from the sides and back. They matched in color, if not thickness, his recently arrived teenage mustache, of which Barton was very proud even though it was quite patchy and uneven and, from a distance, could be mistaken for crumbs of burned toast.
    When it came to grooming, Crandall was another matter altogether. His