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Surviving the Applewhites
Surviving the Applewhites
Surviving the Applewhites
Ebook195 pages3 hours

Surviving the Applewhites

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this ebook

The side-splittingly funny Newbery Honor Book about a rebellious boy who is sent to a home-schooling program run by one family—the creative, kooky, loud, and loving Applewhites!

Jake Semple is notorious. Rumor has it he managed to get kicked out of every school in Rhode Island, and actually burned the last one down to the ground.

Only one place will take him now, and that's a home school run by the Applewhites, a chaotic and hilarious family of artists: poet Lucille, theater director Randolph, dancer Cordelia, and dreamy Destiny. The only one who doesn't fit the Applewhite mold is E.D.—a smart, sensible girl who immediately clashes with the defiant Jake.

Jake thinks surviving this new school will be a breeze . . . but is he really as tough or as bad as he seems?

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateApr 24, 2012
ISBN9780062213365
Author

Stephanie S. Tolan

Stephanie S. Tolan is the author of more than twenty-five books for young readers, including Listen!, which won the Christopher Award and the Henry Bergh ASPCA Award. Her New York Times bestselling novel Surviving the Applewhites received a Newbery Honor and was named a Smithsonian Notable Children’s Book, a School Library Journal Best Book for Children, an ALA Booklist Editor’s Choice, an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book, and an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. Tolan has left her home by the small lake in a big woods of North Carolina and now lives in the Hudson River Valley of upstate New York with a view of the Catskills Mountains and the prospect of wintertime cross country skiing. You can visit her online at www.stephanietolan.com.

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Reviews for Surviving the Applewhites

Rating: 3.729695558375634 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    this book is about a boy named Jake Semple and he had some problems in the past but the applewhites helped him live his new life and get over his problems with creativity and definetly acting. Jake was in a play such as The sound of music and he was Rolf. That is when he found the good of himself. When problems started accuring during the play he and Edith were quick to solve them. wheter it was the rain and the lights everything ends out fine. but there also were reporters there and they were astonished that a family with such talent but not much dignity and courage get a great show to go on. but i still think this is a great book with interest in it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Thoroughly enjoyed reading this with my 10 yr old son. We loved this artistic and chaotic family. Gives some idea of how unschooling works as an educational philosophy.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Surviving the Applewhites is a realistic fiction novel about a foster boy who is labled as a troublemaker and is continuously kicked out of foster homes. He is sent to live at a home where the kids are "homeschooled" and basically design there whole education. His first opinion of their family is pretty accurate, however, it does change through the course of the story as he discovers the real meaning of family.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Jake Semple has good deep down inside. Book is really funny and personalitys change.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book, "Surviving the Applewhites" is about The Creative Academy and E.D. Applewhite and her family. The Applewhites meet a boy named Jake. Jake has dont a lot of negative things and finally got enrolled into The Creative Academy. Jake stays at The Creative Academy because if he leaves he would have to go to Juvenille. Soon, Randolph Applewhite, the husband of Sybil Applewhite directs a play called "The Sound Of Music." All the Applewhites and Jake come and help after the play has been canceled. Jake casts as a boy in the play. Some of the Applwhites work on costumes, sets, and etc.While the play for "The Sound of Music" Jake gets to know the real him. SOme of the characters changed while the book. For example, Jake. He was a boy who smoked, burned down schools, etc. At the end of the book he took out all his piercings, shaved his head, and played a part in a play. I gave this book a 3 out 5 because I really enjoyed really enjoyed reading this book. There were some parts where i realy needed to know more information about. It kept me thinking but i never got to figure out what the answers were to my question. Sometimesi couldn't really get to know one of the characters personalities. I did like how they made a play for "The Sound Of Music." I also liked watching the Sound of Music.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book has an amazing story line. This book has a few climaxes and a great many characters to remember whilst reading. I do not regret reading this book and hope that I won't regret any book I ever read. The description of Wit's End keeps you wondering about what catastrophe will happen next and from what angle, direction or elevation. Many characters in this book are unimportant in regards of the main story line. I would rate this book a 7 out of 10. I don't think I'll read any more Stephanie Tolan books though.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    THis book is about boy named jake who was sent to the creative academy. For setting his old school on fire. In the middle of this book he is picked without asking to be in a play for sound of music. But then he started to like playing as Rolf. At the end the play was a success. This is a good book to read. It caught ma in surprise at certain points in the story. I would like it though if its story was not all over the place.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was so-so. The family, through their actions, shows their "visitor" what is really important in life.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Surviving the Applewhites is about what is on the outside of a person does not count but what is on the inside does. In this book, Jake Simple a troubled teen with a criminal record and no where to go, ends up living with the Applewhite family. The family is made up of several adult and children who look at people and life in an unusual way. The Applewhite's are a creative family made up of arts, director, authors and dancers. By the end of the book Jake is no longer an outcast but a productive member of the family. I would recommend this book if there was nothing else to read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was intruiged by the type of family the Applewhites were and how even a bad boy from the city could feel out of place in this artsy family. But it took such a family to be able to unlock the true talents of those around them and realize that by working otgether great things can happen. It's a lesson on finding your calling and not giving up.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Surviving the applewhites is about a delinquent kid who goes to live with the applewhites family. It is about him trying to get along with them and learning what life is really about. I did not like this book very much. I feel like they could have said more and explained more about him and how he gets along.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I liked this book only a little because I like books with more adventure than this one had but i did like the parrot who said bad words in different languages.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A funny story.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The book "Surving the Applewhites" is told by two people's different points of view. During this interesting story the Applewhites successfully manage to direct the play "The Sound of Music," and surprisingly helping Jake Semple. Since, Jake had the option to decide where he rather go, (juvi or Creative Academy) he choose to stay with the Applewhites. He prefered to stay cause the Creative Academy is a school where you can make your own program to learn about. After that being done, E.D. comes up with a fantastic strategy for the family to use while guests are staying at the cottages and the 'play' is being edited. All in all the family had a few problems that had to be solved. Luckly they were all tooken care of, when the whole family work together (including: Jake, Govindaswami, and Jermy). It turns out that when eveeryone works together they all achieve peace.I thought this book was kinda sort of boring and nice to read. Once I read 1 page, it turns out I'm reading a whole chapter! It wasn't really one of those books were the action gets higher and it gets better and better the more you read ahead. Then again, it did sorta improve on the story. I got more.....what's the word? Not interesting, but.....Oh, yes! This book got more entertaining to read. So, yeah I guess you can say, "I did enjoy it." Well, since I'm rating it in *stars* I'm going to have to ogive it 2 stars.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a fun book about a "bad boy" whose been kicked out of every school in the district. Just when it looks like he's out of options, a local homeschooling family decides to invite him into their home. I really liked how this book shows that if you treat a kid like a bad kid and they hear how bad they are over and over, then pretty soon all that they think they are capable of being is a bad kid. It was great seeing how the Applewhites invited him into their home and really turned his life around.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Jake has arrived at his last resort after being kicke d out of nearly every school around, the Applewhites home school.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Upbeat and weird look at what’s a good family.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Jake Stemple is a Bad Kid. He likes being the Bad Kid. But now both his parents are in jail, he's just been kicked out of the last school likely to take him in, and his grandpa has dropped in off in the middle of Nowhere, North Carolina among a crazy group of artistic-hippie types. But after a month or so, he finds that he fits in better than he expected.It wasn't exactly unpredictable, but it was very funny. I loved the production of the first-ever multi-cultural production of The Sound of Music, complete with accordion music and candlelight. I loved the characters and the relationships. Very fun.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a book about a school. But not just any school, the Creative Academy. Jake Semple is a sort of "Juvenille Deliquent." The Academy's goal is turn Jake into a well behaved kid. Jake meets a girl about his age named ED. It is ED's job to turn Jake around. Everything works out in the end, thanks to The Sound of Music.I didn't really like Surviving the Applewhites. I mainly didn't like the type of book it was. I like action books. But if I had to say my favorite part of the book was, I would say when Jake found the butterfly ED was missing. I recommend the book to people who like any type of book thats not action or adventure. This book also got boring at a point. I overall didn't like this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Surviving the Applewhites is a story about a teenage boy named Jake Simple who was always known as the bad kid. He was forced to choose to either stay at a place called Wit’s End or to go to Juvenile Corrections. He chose Wit’s End, a unique home school run by the Applewhite family. He found out it wasn’t like he expected it to be. At Wit’s End he took the Creative Academy. The Creative Academy is a home school that lets you take classes of what you like to do. Will Wit’s End be enough to change Jake’s bad reputation? I like this book because it was really amusing. The best part was when Jake found out what he liked to do. The worst part was when Mrs. Montrose canceled the show. The funniest part was when Wolfy was running around Wit’s End. I think this book has good description. I think the Creative Academy was a good idea. If you like book with family chaos in it then this will be a good book for you.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book was a bit of a disappointment - especially for a Newbery Honor book.The characters were pretty flat and one-dimensional and the main character, Jake, evolved with very little conflict. There were too many characters in the story that were not very well developed.My two favorite characters were Destiny and Winston (the dog). They were not the main characters though. This book being chosen as a Newbery Honor book makes me want to find out which book won in 2002 . . . and if 9/11 the year before had any impact on the selection committee's choice in this book.I'm not sure I'd recommend this to my students - there are too many other great books out there for them to spend time reading this one.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A funny and entertaning book
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In this selection Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan Jake a juvenile from Rhode Island. Jake is sent to The Creative Academy. Where Jake meets E.D., E.D. gets angry that Jake is being enrolled into her class. After time Jake and E.D. become better friends. Randolph, E.D.’s dad is a director and at the moment he is directing The Sound of Music. He hears Jake sing and immediately asks him to join his cast. After time Jack finds the real him not what he wants himself to be. At first I really disliked this book because I didn’t like how it began. But, towards the middle it started to get really interesting. How it had the story based on The Sound of Music. I honestly love the movie. I gave this book three stars because of the level of the book. Also, because it was good but, not great. I suggest this book if you like books about turning points in peoples life’s.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    this is about a juvenial (did I spell that right?)delinquent type of kid who gets put into a weird school.The hills are alive with the sound of music!!!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Reading this book is like taking a vacation with eccentric but very lovable relatives. Jake Semple's transformation from punk to performer is totally believable.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Surviving the Applewhites is a book about an artistic family. This family is the Applewhites. The Applewhites stared a home school because a teacher got mad at one of the kids because she painted a zebra purple and black. Everything is going grate until someone comes to the school because he burnt down his old school. He is put with E.D. how is the most organised person of the family. The dad is directing a musica when they get kicked out of the theater and because of that they build a theater in their back yard. So the play starts and at the end it is a big hit. I would rate this book a four star. This is why I liked this book. I liked this book because it should me that people can change. I recamend this book to ereryone. It is a good reading book. it was also funny. that is why I liked that book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a really funny story about a juvenile delinquent who is trying to get attention. I think everyone should read it!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is an anchor book of Contemporary Realistic Fiction. Jake Semple is a juvenile delinquent who is sent to a home school run by the Applewhite family. Jake figures that surviving this family will be a cinch. However, he finds that the Applewhites are not an ordinary punishment. Situated on a multi-acre plot, their family community is part school, part farm, part artist colony, part spiritual center, and part theater guild. As he tries to rebel against the few rules and loose structure of the Applewhites, Jake begins to have conflicting feelings. The family dog befriends him, and he takes an interest in a local play, directed by one of the Applewhites. Is he starting to find himself? E.D. Applewhite is a smart--semi-blacksheep girl--who butts heads with Jake. The story is just as much about her relationship with her family and where she fits in. Children will find much in common with many of these two characters' feelings and tribulations. If nothing else, Surviving the Applewhites is a humorous and entertaining read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Hmm. I really enjoyed listening to this - the story's fun and of course the musical angle is right up my alley. Perhaps because Robert Sean Leonard isn't too famous, after a moment of recognition his voice and personality faded into the background for me. Of the last three narrators of young children that I've listened to, Leonard has easily done the best job with his portrayal of Destiny Applewhite. Not annoying at all which is more of a triumph than you might think. However - the ending lacks punch for me and I have to admit, I was a little disappointed by Jake's transformation. I loved that he found his joy, but why did he have to give up everything he was before for that to happen? I understand the internal logic - everything he was before was simply intended to cause a reaction rather than coming from him internally, but it still doesn't sit quite right with me. Hence the hmmm. Also, I liked the alternating of narrators between Jake and E. D., but they don't really get equal weight. I think perhaps this was just lighter than I expected or remembered. Playaway narrated by Robert Sean Leonard. Previously read.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book is about a boy named Jake Sempel. Jake is a delinquent and he is living a miserable life. Then come the Applewhites. The Applewhite family is in charge of a Homeschooling program and this family is rather awkward. Jake finds himself as an outsider as soon as he steps foot on the Wit's End property. Jake learns many different things as he lives a Wit's End. Jake learns that he must babysit Destiny, because Destiny can't look up to his older brother Hal, who will stay only in his room. At the end Jake likes the family and him and E.D. get along very well.I really think this book was kind of tidious but then maybe it was also okay. I would have rather really read a different book, something more exciting and not really dull. I can kind of relate to how Jake feels, he is mostly lonely and he tries to fit in but he just can't. Thank you Mr. Poppe for letting me get a wiff of another book that is quite interesting.

Book preview

Surviving the Applewhites - Stephanie S. Tolan

Chapter One

My name is not Edie. It’s E.D. E period, D period."

What kind of a name is that?

The boy slouching against the porch railing had scarlet spiked hair, a silver ring through one dark brown eyebrow, and too many earrings to count. He was dressed entirely in black—black T-shirt, black jeans, black high-top running shoes—and the look in his eyes was pure mean.

My kind, E. D. Applewhite said. She had no intention of telling this creep the story of her name. She could tell by looking at him that he’d never heard of Edith Wharton, her mother’s favorite writer. Being probably the only almost-thirteen-year-old girl in the whole country named Edith, she had no intention of giving him even that little bit of ammunition to use against her. E.D., she thought, was at least dignified—like a corporate executive, which one day she just might be. What kind of a name is Jake Semple?

Two can play at that game, the boy’s face said. Mine.

Not an original bone in his body, E.D. thought. Just a plain ordinary delinquent.

According to her friend Melissa, though, Jake Semple was famous. He had been kicked out of the public schools in the whole state of Rhode Island. Melissa wasn’t sure what all he’d done to achieve that particular distinction, but the word around Traybridge was that one thing he did was burn down his old school. He’d come to North Carolina to live with his grandfather Henry Dugan, a neighbor of the Applewhites, and go to Traybridge Middle School.

The plan had not lasted long. No one in living memory had been thrown out of Traybridge Middle School, but Jake Semple had managed to accomplish that feat in three weeks flat. At least the building was still standing. It was only the middle of September, and he had run out of schools that were willing to risk taking him.

Mr. Dugan was inside at that moment discussing with E.D.’s parents, her Aunt Lucille, Uncle Archie, and Grandpa Zedediah the arrangement the two families and Jake’s social worker had worked out for continuing Jake’s education.

Jake Semple was the first person E.D. had ever met who had a social worker. She thought that was probably only one step away from having a probation officer, which is what Jake’s parents would have when they got out of jail. That was why Jake had a social worker—because his parents were in jail for growing marijuana in their basement and offering some to an off-duty sheriff’s deputy. E.D. didn’t know how long they were going to be in jail, but at least a year. She figured criminal tendencies ran in families. The kid had burned down his school just after his parents were arrested.

E.D.’s Aunt Lucille was a poet and had been conducting a workshop at Traybridge Middle School when Jake was kicked out. This whole terrible idea had been hers. She’d told Mr. Dugan about the Creative Academy, which was what E.D.’s father had named the Applewhite home school. Only Aunt Lucille, whose view of life was almost pathologically sunny, would get the idea that after an entire state had admitted it couldn’t cope with the kid and after Traybridge Middle School had been defeated in less than a month, the Applewhites should take him in. The Creative Academy didn’t even have any trained teachers, let alone guidance counselors and armed security guards. There were a whole bunch of buildings the kid could burn down at Wit’s End—the main house, all eight cottages, the goat shed, a toolshed, and the barn.

But somehow Aunt Lucille had convinced everybody else. E.D. had been the only family member to vote against letting Jake Semple join them. She’d begged her grandfather, who usually had more sense than all the rest of the family combined, to put a stop to the idea. You know how Aunt Lucille can’t ever believe a bad thing about anybody! she’d told him. Her attitude about people is downright dangerous.

He’d only twiddled with his mustache and said that he rather envied Lucille’s rose-colored view of things. More often than not, I’ve noticed, it turns out to be true. Then he had declared taking Jake Semple in a noble and socially responsible thing to do. Noble and socially responsible! More like suicidal, E.D. thought. She had thought that even before she’d laid eyes on Jake Semple. Now she was sure of it.

Jake pulled a cigarette out of a pack in his T-shirt pocket.

Better not light that thing, she said, thinking about lighters and matches and very large fires. Wit’s End is a smoke-free environment.

The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a yellow plastic lighter. You can’t have a smoke-free environment outdoors, he said.

We can have it anywhere we want—this is our property, all sixteen acres of it.

Jake looked her square in the eye and lit the cigarette. He took a long drag and blew the smoke directly into her face so that she had to close her eyes and hold her breath to keep from choking on it. Then he said one of Paulie’s favorite phrases. No one had managed to break Grandpa’s adopted parrot of swearing. E.D. suspected that they wouldn’t have any better luck with Jake Semple.

Chapter Two

So far so good, Jake thought. This girl was bugged by cursing and smoking. He had news for her. He intended to do a whole lot of both. He took a long drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke at her again. She turned away and moved down to the other end of the porch steps. Doesn’t bother me, girl—you can bug off completely as far as I’m concerned.

Jake hadn’t been any more than two years old when he found out how certain words affected people. It had surprised him considerably, since his parents used those words at home all the time. He’d learned them the same way he learned all the other words he knew. People didn’t make a fuss when his parents used them, but once he’d seen how some adults reacted to those words when he said them, it had become a game. He could still remember the old woman with the mean, pinched-up face who told him to take his sticky fingers off the display case when his mother took him to the bakery to get a cake on his third birthday. He had smiled his best little-boy smile and said just two words. The woman had gone all white and slumped right down to the floor. The image was as clear in his mind now as if it had happened yesterday—the way she’d just disappeared all of a sudden from behind the counter. All the fuss and furor afterward had made a permanent impression on him. Nobody could ever tell Jake Semple words didn’t have power.

If the rest of the Applewhites were anything like this girl, he thought, he ought to be able to bug them quite a lot for however long he was going to be stuck with them. He leaned back against the support post behind him and watched the smoke float out from his nostrils. He hated adults making decisions for him and expecting him to just go along with whatever they said. His parents had tried that and given up. But because of that big mistake they’d made with the sheriff’s deputy, they’d been carted off to their separate minimum-security prisons and he was stuck with a bunch of strangers who didn’t get it that he wasn’t going to do what he didn’t want to do. He would just have to show them! He intended his time here to be even shorter than his time at Traybridge Middle School.

The smoking part was going to be a problem, though. This was his last pack of cigarettes. It was miles to town, and out here in the North Carolina boonies there was no such thing as a bus. He squinted against the smoke that was blowing back at him now. Maybe, since there were tobacco fields along just about every road, he could tear off a few leaves and learn to roll his own.

He was pretty sure this girl had been told to keep an eye on him while his grandfather was inside, to make sure he didn’t set fire to the porch or something. She wasn’t much to look at. Not much shape yet. Still as much like a boy as a girl, and the chopped-off hair didn’t help much. She was sitting there now with her scabby elbows on her scabby knees, staring off down the driveway. Jake couldn’t see the main road from here, the way the drive curved around a row of trees and bushes, but out there was a wooden sign with WIT’S END spelled out on it with bark-covered twigs. Quaint and rustic and weird. Jake had never known anyone who named their house before.

His grandfather said the place had had a name ever since he was a kid. It had been a farm till it went bust and somebody bought it, built a bunch of scruffy little cabins up against the woods, and turned it into a motor lodge. They’d named it The Bide-A-Wee, added an office wing, and lived in the big two-story house. Then the Applewhites, all artsy types, his grandfather said, had moved down from New York and bought it. The scruffy little cabins were still there, but now the house was part house and part school.

There were four Applewhite kids, but Jake had only met this one so far—this A.B. or C.D. or whatever her name was. Being home schooled, the Applewhites hadn’t been at Traybridge Middle School during what he liked to think of as the Jake Semple Reign of Terror. He wondered what the others were like.

Suddenly there was a scream from somewhere off to the right of the house. A brown-and-white German shepherd–sized animal with huge lopsided horns came tearing around the end of the porch and down toward the road. A long piece of white cloth with flowers on it streamed from its mouth and dragged on the ground, almost tangling in its legs as it ran. Right behind it, shouting at the top of her lungs, came a tall, barefoot girl in a black leotard. Jake nearly choked on the smoke he had just inhaled. This one was easy to recognize as a girl! He thought she might be the most gorgeous girl he’d ever seen. She was running at first, her long, wavy auburn hair streaming out behind her, but she started hopping from one foot to the other when she reached the gravel drive. From then on her shouting kept getting interrupted by little yelps of pain.

The animal she was chasing was a goat. A smelly one. As fast as it had galloped by, it had left its odor very clearly on the air. Goat and girl disappeared around the bend in the drive, but the shouting and yelping went on, getting fainter and fainter.

Cordelia, the girl on the step said. And Wolfie.

What’s all the fuss? Jake’s grandfather came out of the house, a fat dog—a basset hound—with ears so long it nearly walked on them with every step, waddling at his heels. The Applewhite adults were right behind.

The oldest of them, a wiry old man with white hair and a droopy white mustache, pushed his way through the others and headed straight for the wooden rocking chair in the corner of the porch. On his way he snatched the cigarette out of Jake’s hand so fast Jake didn’t know what had happened till it was being ground out on the porch floor under the old man’s shoe.

Smoke-free environment, he said, and sat down on the rocker. Remember that.

Everybody on the porch, including the basset hound, was looking at Jake, and he felt his face starting to heat up. He looked off the way the goat and the girl had gone, whistling under his breath to let them know that he didn’t care. Not at all.

The breathtaking girl in the leotard was picking her way back along the driveway, carrying what was left of the flowered material as if she had a dead baby in her arms. It was smudged with red-brown dirt and dotted with burrs.

I’m going to murder that goat one of these days! she said.

Lucille Applewhite, the frizzy-haired blond poet whose idea all this was, ran down the porch steps, one hand over her heart. You might have murdered him already, yelling and chasing him like that. He’s probably lying in a heap under a bush somewhere, drawing his last breath.

No, he’s not. I chased him into the barn.

Come off it, Lucille, the man with the shaggy dark hair and goatee said. According to the description Jake’s grandfather had given him, this had to be Randolph Applewhite, the father of the Applewhite children. That smelly demon is hostility personified. It would take more than a little chasing to get him down.

That isn’t hostility. Wolfbane is suffering from post-traumatic stress. Lucille turned back to the girl in the leotard. Whatever were you doing in the goat pen?

Cordelia stamped her foot and yelped again. She had apparently forgotten she was standing in the gravel. Jake thought she had a particularly musical yelp. I was not in the goat pen! I was in the meadow. That beastly, smelly, disgusting creature was running loose. Again! He tried to murder me. It was lucky I had a piece of my costume with me to deflect him.

Lucille let out a squeal. Loose? He was loose? What about Hazel? Where’s Hazel?

Cordelia stormed up the porch steps, pushed her way through the crowd of people, and stepped over the dog, who had flopped down directly in front of the door. She’s halfway to Traybridge for all I know. Ask Destiny! The screen door banged shut behind her.

Destiny? The woman with reading glasses around her neck, who’d been jotting notes on a little notepad, looked up now, as if she was just tuning in. She was famous, Jake knew. He’d even seen her on television once. She wrote best-selling mysteries about a florist who was an amateur detective. She was also the children’s mother, but her name wasn’t Applewhite; it was Jameson. Sybil Jameson.

What about Destiny? she asked now. "He’s taking a

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