Read Applewhites at Wit's End for Free Online

decision and accept my daughter. If any child belongs at a camp for highly creative children, my Priscilla does! But he has refused.”
    E.D. hadn’t heard about any expert recommendations. Probably her father had simply thrown them away.
    â€œI hold your father solely responsible for the fact that Priscilla has been crying herself to sleep every night. She’s devastated! She had been absolutely counting on a summer of companionship with other creatively gifted children. You tell him he has not heard the last of this .”
    â€œI’m terribly sorry for Priscilla’s distress, and I’m certain my father is as well.” E.D. took a breath and then went on. “But really, there was nothing we could do. By the time those expert recommendations were received, the camp was completely filled up. All the places were taken within a week of the application deadline.”
    Jake began to laugh and hurriedly put a hand over his mouth.
    â€œThank you for calling, Mrs. Montrose,” E.D. said. “I’ll be sure to give my father your message.” She hung up. “Thank goodness we didn’t take her kid. Imagine that woman hovering over us all summer. Listen, I don’t have time to help with the blankets. Just put them on the ends of the bunks! I bet the campers won’t use them a single time all summer.”
    After the success of The Sound of Music last fall, the family had decided to air-condition Wit’s End. But they had only finished the main house, Zedediah’s and Archie and Lucille’s cottages, the woodshop, and the dance studio before the end of the world. The campers were going to have to depend on North Carolina breezes to cool their cottages. “Roughing it” is what Randolph called it.
    â€œAt least your new haircut ought to be cool,” E.D. said.
    Jake ran a hand through his hair and grinned. “Cool and easy. Destiny’s having fits because your mother won’t let him get a Mohawk too.”
    E.D. sighed. Jake was an appalling role model. She had been hoping to help her little brother avoid the curse of the creative flake by instilling in him habits of organization and good sense while he was still young enough for them to stick, but the moment Jake came into their lives that hope had turned to dust. She divided her life now into BJ and AJ: Before Jake and After Jake. Until he came, E.D. had thought there were basically two kinds of people in the world: chaotic creatives like everybody else in her family, and normal, stable, sensible people like herself. Jake didn’t fit into either camp. He had both an Applewhite-esque creative streak and a genuine ability for organization and follow through. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the organization and follow-through side of him that appealed to Destiny.
    Just then Winston began his hysterical “terrorists coming, terrorists coming” combination of howling and barking outside. Most of Winston’s terrorist alarms were figments of his imagination caused by the occasional vehicle that happened to pass Wit’s End on the road out beyond the driveway. But this time the alarm was followed immediately by the sound of a car on the gravel driveway.
    â€œWho could it be?” E.D. looked at the clock: 10:27. “It’s way, way too early to be a camper!”
    By the time E.D. and Jake got out onto the front porch, the driver of the shiny black Mercedes with heavily tinted windows that was parked in front of the main house was leaning on the horn. The sound was driving the dog into ever more frenzied howling, though by now he was backing slowly but purposefully toward the porch, the fur on his neck and back standing straight up.
    â€œInside, Winston,” E.D. said, holding the screen door open.
    The frantic dog turned, nearly tripping over his ears, and scuttled safely into the house, where he continued to bark menacingly.
    The horn went still. For a moment nothing happened. The