Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen Page B

— what was up with those?
    I crouched behind a neighbor's hedge and watched them for ten or fifteen minutes, and man, the longer I watched, the madder I got. My grandfather had alreadysaid more to her in this little slice of time than he'd said to me the whole year and a half he'd been living with us. What was his deal with Juli Baker?
    I took the back way home, which involved climbing two fences and kicking off the neighbor's stupid little terrier, but it was worth it, considering I avoided the garden party across the street.
    Again I got no homework done. The more I watched them, the madder I got. I was still a cluck-faced jerk, while Juli was laughing it up with my grandfather. Had I ever seen him smile? Really smile? I don't think so! But now he was knee-high in nettles,
laughing
.
    At dinner that night he'd showered and changed back into his regular clothes and house slippers, but he didn't look the same. It was like someone had plugged him in and turned on the light.
    “Good evening,” he said as he sat down with the rest of us. “Oh, Patsy, that looks delicious!”
    “Well, Dad,” my mom said with a laugh, “your excursion across the street seems to have done you a world of good.”
    “Yeah,” my father said. “Patsy tells me you've been over there all afternoon. If you were in the mood for home improvement projects, why didn't you just say so?”
    My father was just joking around, but I don't think my grandfather took it that way. He helped himself to a cheese-stuffed potato and said, “Pass the salt, won't you, Bryce?”
    So there was this definite tension between my father and my grandfather, but I think if Dad had dropped the subject right then, the vibe would've vanished.
    Dad didn't drop it, though. Instead, he said, “Sowhy's the girl the one who's finally doing something about their place?”
    My grandfather salted his potato very carefully, then looked across the table at me. Ah-oh, I thought. Ah-
oh
. In a flash I knew those stupid eggs were not behind me. Two years of sneaking them in the trash, two years of avoiding discussion of Juli and her eggs and her chickens and her early-morning visits, and for what? Granddad knew, I could see it in his eyes. In a matter of seconds he'd crack open the truth, and I'd be as good as fried.
    Enter a miracle. My grandfather petrified me for a minute with his eyes but then turned to my father and said, “She wants to, is all.”
    A raging river of sweat ran down my temples, and as my father said, “Well, it's about time
someone
did,” my grandfather looked back at me and I knew—he was not going to let me forget this. We'd just had another conversation, only this time I was definitely not dismissed.
    After the dishes were cleared, I retreated to my room, but my grandfather came right in, closed the door behind him, and then sat on my bed. He did this all without making a sound. No squeaking, no clanking, no scraping, no
breathing
…I swear, the guy moved through my room like a ghost.
    And of course I'm banging my knee and dropping my pencil and deteriorating into a pathetic pool of Jell-O. But I tried my best to sound cool as I said, “Hello, Granddad. Come to check out the digs?”
    He pinched his lips together and looked at nothing but me.
    I cracked. “Look, Granddad, I know I messed up. I should've just told her, but I couldn't. And I kept thinking they'd stop. I mean, how long can a chicken lay eggs? Those things hatched in the fifth grade! That was like, three years ago! Don't they eventually run out? And what was I supposed to do? Tell her Mom was afraid of salmonella poisoning? And Dad wanted me to tell her we were allergic—c'mon, who's going to buy that? So I just kept, you know, throwing them out. I didn't know she could've sold them. I thought they were just extras.”
    He was nodding, but very slowly.
    I sighed and said, “Thank you for not saying anything about it at dinner. I owe you.”
    He pulled my curtain aside and looked across the