Read The Old House for Free Online Page B

brought in the skunk? How did he get it?”
    â€œTrapped it in a box in his backyard. I don’t know yet. He’d probably have been expelled, but his dad’s head of the school board. They almost kicked me out of school once for bringing a mouse in my shirt pocket. You don’t have much clout when your dad’s the town drunk.”
    â€œIs he?” Buddy asked, shocked.
    â€œYeah. Well, he’s not the only one. But he’s nobody the town would elect to the school board. Poor Cassie believed him when he said he’d stop drinking, but he’s a liar, too.”
    â€œBut they didn’t actually expel you?”
    Max snorted. “No. Not after Addie wentover and gave old Faulker a tongue-lashing. You know, I think he’s afraid of her. I think he was afraid of her when he was a kid and he and Gordon got into trouble, and she bailed them out. Afterward she really blistered both of them and told them next time she’d let them face the consequences if they did something stupid. Gordon said she chewed on them both so hard, she scared Herbert Faulkner forever. Gordon doesn’t admit it, but I think she’s always intimidated him, too.”
    Distracted, Buddy asked, “What had they done?”
    â€œHid a dead chicken in the vent pipes off the kitchen. Addie said it stunk even worse than skunk, and it took them a couple of days to find it.”
    â€œWhy would they have done that?”
    Max shrugged. “Who knows? Some people just like to make trouble.”
    â€œDo you know Uncle Gordon?”
    â€œHe’s my uncle—step-uncle, anyway—so, sure. He doesn’t come very often, but when he does, he brings presents. Addie says it’s to buyhis way out of disfavor, but she takes what he brings.”
    â€œWhat does he bring?” Buddy was completely interested now.
    â€œOh, all kinds of stuff. A basket of fruit. A bag of shelled nuts. A box of high-priced candy. He brought me a neat knife.” He fished it out of his pocket and opened it, displaying all the blades and the can opener and corkscrew and nail file, and a screwdriver. “Last time he brought Addie the complete Oxford English Dictionary she’d been wanting, so she doesn’t have to go to the library every time she wants to look something up. Of course it’s the whole twenty volumes packed into two big books, not the original full-sized set. Addie complains about having to use a magnifying glass to read it, but I can tell she really likes it. Even though she works at the library two days a week, she wanted the books handy here at home.”
    Buddy frowned, trying to remember what she knew about the Oxford English Dictionary. “It’s not a regular dictionary, is it? Doesn’t it tell when words were first used? Like back in 1610 or something?”
    â€œYeah. Lots of weird old words.”
    â€œWhy does she want to look up weird old words?”
    â€œShe uses them in those stories she writes,” Max said, coming down the steps with his hands in his pockets.
    Buddy was astonished. “Addie writes stories?”
    â€œYeah. Never sells any of them, except once in a while a little short piece of some kind, to a magazine. The stories are historical novels. My old man says it’s a waste of time. Nobody ever heard of her, and nobody’ll ever buy anything from her. Didn’t you notice the big envelope that came at lunchtime? She keeps sending them out, and everybody keeps sending them back with rejection slips. You watch, tomorrow she’ll send that one out again to somebody new.”
    â€œI noticed it was addressed to Adelaide Ostrom, and they called her that at the school, too. But that’s her maiden name, isn’t it? Didn’t she change her name when she got married?”
    â€œYeah. But she’d started writing under Ostrom , and she’skept on with that. Besides, she’s lived in this town all her life, and