Keeping Secrets Read Free Page A

animal could wind up in the trap, including one of the other dogs. Once, Harriet had set a trap, and later that day Nikki found Paw-Paw sitting grouchily in it.
    â€œWill you be able to check the trap tonight and again tomorrow before you leave for school?” asked Harriet. “I’ll want to come pick up the dog as soon as possible.”
    â€œI’ll make time,” said Nikki.
    Harriet grinned. “I can’t ask for more.”
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    Nikki and Harriet set the trap, placing a dog biscuit at the back and carefully setting the door so that it would shut — and lock — behind the dog when she nosed inside for the treat. Then Nikki called good-bye to Harriet, returned to the house, and sat down at the kitchen table, her schoolbooks stacked beside her, Paw-Paw dozing at her feet. She was reading an amazingly dull paragraph about the French Revolution for what she estimated was the seventh time when the phone rang, startling her and causing Paw-Paw to leap to his feet, barking mightily.
    â€œThank you for protecting me from the telephone,” Nikki said to him as she pressed the TALK button. “Hello?”
    â€œHello, little sis.”
    â€œTobias!”
    â€œHow’s everything?”
    â€œGreat. But I miss you.”
    â€œI miss you, too. Is Mom there?”
    â€œNope. No one else is home yet.”
    â€œOh.” Tobias sounded disappointed. “I didn’t look at the time before I called.”
    â€œIs something going on?”
    â€œSomething good.”
    â€œWhat? What?”
    â€œWhat are you guys doing the first weekend in November?”
    â€œI don’t know. Why?”
    â€œI just found out that the first Saturday in November is family visiting day at Leavitt. I was hoping you and Mom and Mae could come.”
    Nikki let out a small shriek. “Yes! Yes, oh, yes, oh, yes! Come visit you at college? I’ve been waiting for this! I want to see everything! I want to see your dorm and the science center — didn’t you say there’s a greenhouse? — and the library and the theatre —” Nikki could hear Tobias laughing. “I want to see everything!” she exclaimed again.
    â€œDo you think Mom has to work that day?”
    â€œI don’t know, but it’s a month away. I’m sure she can figure something out. Then it’ll just be …” Nikki’s voice trailed off.
    â€œI know,” said Tobias.
    Nikki sighed. “For starters, she’ll have to drive to a strange place.”
    â€œI’ll give you directions.”
    â€œAnd I’ll get maps,” said Nikki. “But also … Mom will feel out of place at Leavitt.” Nikki thought of her mother, whose parents had barely allowed her to graduate from high school. For her, college had been out of the question, not even a consideration. Nikki knew Mrs. Sherman was proud of Tobias. She also knew her mother felt he had entered a world that was as foreign to her as Greece (a country Nikki hoped to visit one day). “She’ll be afraid she won’t fit in with the other college parents.”
    â€œI know. I mean, I know that’s how she’ll feel. We’ll have to handle this very delicately.”
    â€œWith finesse,” said Nikki.
    â€œWith tact,” said Tobias.
    â€œMaybe I could bribe her,” said Nikki, and Tobias laughed again.
    â€œI’ll call back tonight and talk to her,” said Tobias. “I want to show you all around the campus, and we could have lunch in the student center.”
    Nikki closed her eyes and imagined visiting a college town and touring an actual college campus. She imagined meeting Tobias’s roommates and walking under a wrought iron archway that read LEAVITT COLLEGE . She didn’t know how she and Tobias were going to convince their mother to make the trip, but she knew they had to make it happen somehow.

Camden Falls, Massachusetts, puts on appropriate