The Jewel and the Key Read Free

charmed already and not enough people to tell him the hard truth. “You can’t keep getting in fights, Whaley! Not after they suspended you the last time. Don’t you care?”
    â€œAbout school? What do you think?”
    Addie didn’t have to think. She knew. “Well, do you care about Dad?”
    â€œOf course I do. If it wasn’t for him, I’d still be sleeping on that bench right there.” He looked down at his old Doc Martens and then back up at her. “And if it wasn’t for you.”
    It was true. She’d been shocked to find him sleeping in this park last September after his stepmom had kicked him out, his head propped on his guitar case and his possessions stuffed into a bag at his feet. Since they’d been friends so long, it hadn’t been hard to convince her father to let him move in with them. Dad was a sucker for strays.
    â€œYou can’t let him see that big bruise,” she said more gently. “You promised no more fights, remember?”
    â€œIt’s a black eye, Addie. I don’t think I can hide it.” But he looked worried.
    â€œHmm. Actually...” She thought a minute. “Maybe I can.” Here was one thing, at least, she could salvage from today’s audition fiasco. “But you have to let me turn you into a troll.”
    â€œA troll?” He broke off, looking slightly abashed. “Oh, man, I
am
a troll. I forgot your audition. Did you get the part?”
    Addie ignored the question. “Wait here. I need to get something.”
    She sprinted down the hill and ran along the street until Victrola Books came into view. Upstairs, on the second and third floors, where her family lived, the lights were out. But in the warm glow of the lamps inside the secondhand bookstore on the ground floor, Zack was curled up in the window seat reading one of his Redwall books, with Magnesium asleep on his lap, a swirl of soft white fur. Dad’s prized antique gramophone gleamed on the shelf above him. She caught a glimpse of Dad behind the counter, but thankfully he was reading the paper and didn’t notice her.
    She darted around the side of the building before either of them could spot her, went in the back door, ran up to her room, and dug out the tackle box. Dad had given it to her for a makeup kit, back when she’d staged
The Hobbit
with the neighborhood kids in the adjoining backyards. The face paint she’d been messing around with last night was in there, and pancake makeup with brushes and sponges for applying it.
    She may have blown her audition, Addie thought as she left with the tackle box in her hands, but she could at least keep Whaley out of trouble by transforming him into the troll king.

2. Mushroom Boy

    An hour later, they came home from the park, shivering. The bookstore was closed, so they had to walk around to the back door to get into the house. Shedding their muddy shoes in the hall behind the store, they climbed the stairs to the second floor.
    Smells of tomato sauce and oregano floated out of the kitchen as they headed to the living room, the largest space in the house, where everyone ate and hung out and did homework. Looking nervously at the glittery silver and green designs she had painted over Whaley’s battered features, Addie hesitated before going in. She wasn’t sure how successfully she’d concealed his injuries, and she didn’t feel ready for a confrontation if she’d failed. Whaley hung back, too. Gathering her nerve, Adie flashed him a quick smile and peeked around the door frame.
    Someone had lit a fire in the fireplace. Its warm light glowed against the dark paneling. Their neighbor Mrs. Turner was sitting in one of window seats that overlooked the street. Even from way back here, Addie could see her bright lipstick vying for attention with the latest dye job she’d inflicted on her gray hair. Mrs. T. was stout, well dressed (in a flowing-crepe-fabric kind of