Summer Sanctuary Read Free

replied. “Up to a million dollars.”
    Mom whistled softly. “Well, that’s certainly a generous offer—especially coming from a woman who never had any children of her own.”
    Who has lots of money and no children?
My mind was racing through our congregation.
    â€œIt would be generous if there were no strings attached,” Dad said.
    â€œSo what does she want?”
    â€œYou’re not going to believe it.” I peeked around the corner and saw my dad shaking his head as he sat by my mom on the couch. “She wants to be able to bring her dogs to church.”
    My mom laughed so loud, I nearly jumped out of my jammies. “All of them?” she howled. I retreated back a few steps, safely out of view.
    â€œReally, Theresa, it’s not funny.” When Mom tried to stop laughing, she started hooting like an owl. “And,no, she doesn’t want to bring all of them.” Dad took a deep breath. “She’d like to bring two dogs to each service. She said that if she were blind I’d have to let her bring a seeing-eye dog, and that if she could have one of her dogs on each side of her as she listened to my sermons, she’d be much more capable of seeing and hearing the truth.”
    It must be old Mrs. Miller.
Kyle and I once overheard his dad saying that she had more money than God and not a blessed idea what to do with any of it. She’s got half a dozen fancy dogs that she paid tons of money for plus more strays than anyone’s been able to count.
    â€œSo, you get your Promised Land, only it’s already going to the dogs!” Mom was still laughing.
    Dad sighed. “Right. The Israelites got the Land of Canaan, and I get the Land of Canine.”
    They stopped talking. I guessed they were kissing. Time for me to go back to bed.

Three
    T HE NEXT DAY , I couldn’t get to the library soon enough. It opened at 10:00, and I watched Mrs. Cleary unlock the front doors. Mrs. Cleary had worked at the library since before I was born. She still wore her hair in one of those bouffant hairdos. The week before she ordered a bunch of books on relativity for me through interlibrary loan. She stood a little too close beside me and leaned over my shoulder to see my list. She smelled a little too much like the cafeteria at the Senior Center where we went Christmas caroling every year.
    I planted myself on the bench outside the library and thought about the girl. I decided that her parents must be dead. Whoever she lived with must be so terrible that she had to run away. As I sat in front of the library that morning, though, our library didn’t seem like a place for runaways. So I started thinking maybe she was mental. I read something once about people who are so crazy they eat dirt. They can’t help it. Theysee dirt in a flowerbed or garden, and they just have to pick up a handful and shove it in their mouths. Maybe there’s something like that with garbage. I’d have to research
that
if she didn’t show up.
    I almost forgot—it was Saturday. What if she couldn’t come back until Monday? What if she didn’t come back at all? Was she sneaking food out of other trash cans? Did she think I was a total loser—a short, skinny, freckle-faced nobody who liked to quilt? She left awful suddenly. Still—she did smile before she left. Not just a polite smile to dismiss me. It was a real smile that covered her whole face and included her eyes.
She’ll be here
.
I just have to wait
.
    I reached in my backpack and pulled out
The Last Battle
. Even though
The Chronicles of Narnia
series was my favorite, I couldn’t concentrate. I never even turned a page. It was nearly 11:00 when I finally caught a glimpse of her approaching from the side. I didn’t look up from the book until she was standing almost directly in front of me. She was wearing the same clothes as yesterday—same black t-shirt, same jean shorts, same scuffed-up