Summer of the Wolves Read Free Page B

after Randall anyway and we have been taught to be responsible and not do things we are not supposed to do.
 
Sincerely, Annika and Randall McNeill
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    When Nika read this letter back to Randall, he’d given her a thumbs-up, a sliver of his old full-moon smile beginning to rise, his eyes never leaving the paper in her hands.
    As they flew, Nika felt for the necklace Olivia had made for her, a circle of green jade. She’d made Olivia one just like it. It calmed her to touch the coolness of the stone. Then she unfolded the third letter, also from Mystery Uncle. In this one it looked like he was already trying to unload them on somebody else.
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Dear Annika and Randall,
 
We are all excited about your coming visit.
I’m sorry to say that my cabin on Little Berry Island is awfully small (one room), so I’ve made plans for Randall to stay with a really nice family on an attached island, called Big Berry Island. We’ve arranged for him to go to school by boat with their three boys those last weeks of school. Their cabin is close so we can visit every day and do things together.
Since Nika will have make-up credits to do and won’t need to go to school, she has been invited to stay in Pearl’s cabin, up the hill from me on Little Berry Island. Pearl is like a grandma to everyone. I have known her for years, I rent my cabin from her, and eat my meals with her. She’s a good friend.
Looking forward to your visit,
 
Your uncle, Ian McNeill
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    Nika carefully refolded this letter and returned it to the pocket of her journal. Probably this uncle was just trying to do the right thing. Have the kids visit. Duty done. He wasn’t even married. What would he want with kids?
    She glanced at Randall where he sat with his head bent forward, one of his dragon books opened in his lap. Not knowing what else to do, Nika pulled her journal out again. She’d write something, like she was supposed to for English credit. She arranged the yellow journal in her lap and uncapped her pen. The vibrations of the plane made her handwriting jiggle raggedly across the page.
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We are high in the air, somewhere . . . in a plane so small it’s like a flying minivan. When I lean up to look out the front, I can see right through the propeller, it spins so fast. And the plane has floats for landing on the water. Flying is neat, though. Kind of like being nowhere and in between. Anything seems possible.
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    Suddenly Nika felt queasy as the sky pitched by, so she put her pen away. Her ears were popping. She searched in the pocket behind the front seat for the Ziploc barf bags Maki had mentioned. She’d almost forgotten how she always got sick after reading or writing in a moving vehicle.
    To calm her stomach, she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, nothing much had changed. The sky was clear-water blue. The plane’s shadow flickered over a toy town that looked like a half-done jigsaw puzzle.
    When she cast a look at Randall again, he had fallen asleep, one hand holding on to the strap of his backpack, his dragon book beside him on the seat. Seeing him like that, a little drool rolling down his chin and his dark blond hair sweaty and standing up on one side, made her think of the bus bench by Meg’s house. Large red letters were printed on the backrest announcing, “ADOPT SIBLINGS—sometimes all they have is each other.”
    Nika removed the muffling headphones and settled into the thunderous rhythm of the engine. After an hour of steady flying, Maki suddenly leaned to the side and looked out his window. Turning to Nika and Randall and waving for their attention, he shouted, “Look off to the left! See that bare hill surrounded by trees? Five wolves are down there taking a rest!”
    All she could see on the hill below were some small gray rocks. She poked Randall to wake him up.
    â€œI’ll circle down closer,” Maki said, pulling the plane into a