A Summer of Sundays Read Online Free Page B

the back of the stool, landing directly on CJ.
    He pushed me off. “Ouch.” He hobbled to stand, then dissolved into giggles. “You should have seen your face, Sunday! It was hilarious.”
    “You could have killed me, CJ!” A sharp pain bit at my ankle as I groped for the flashlight and got to my feet.
    “Well, I didn’t, did I?” he shot back.
    Dad’s voice boomed from the top of the stairs. “What’s going on down there? Everything okay?”
    “CJ scared the daylights out of me!”
    “I was just trying to be funny.”
    “Well, you have to be careful, especially in the dark,” Dad said. “Are you ready to go, Sunday? How many lights?”
    “Four.”
    “Great, thanks.”
    I started up the stairs but stopped and shined the flashlight once more at the top shelf. From where I stood, I could see the box perfectly, the little silver lock glinting.
    “You coming, Sunday?” Dad called down to me.
    What was in there?
    “Yeah, I’m coming.” I let the doors close and then ran up the steps.
    Tomorrow I’d get the box down and open it.
    “ ’Night, Sunday,” Mom said from the door to my room.
    I yawned and laid down
The Secret Garden
on my chest. “Good night.”
    “How do you like the book so far?”
    “I love it, but I’ve already read it before. Remember? Last year?”
    Mom shook her head, running her hand through her hair. “No. I think I remember May reading it a while ago.” She yawned. “But anyway, try not to stay up too late.”
    My heart sank. Of course she didn’t remember. “Okay.”
    The door closed, and I read until my eyelids drooped. Before sleep completely took over, I tore a small strip of paper from my notebook and slipped it in between the pages. Then I clicked off my reading light and tucked myself under the covers.
    Maybe I could be like Mary Lennox and find a boy locked away in a hidden bedroom. Or maybe I could find a lonely hermit and bring him out of his house.
    Of course, that meant I had to find myself a hermit or a hidden boy.
    Maybe I could crack an unsolved crime.
    JEWEL THIEF CAUGHT THANKS TO SUNDAY FOWLER .
    Whatever it was, I needed to come up with something soon if I ever wanted to become more than just “one-of-the-six.”

UNFORTUNATELY I didn’t think of any other ideas to help me make my mark as I slept. Nothing came to me over our breakfast except maybe trying to break a world record again. But trying to eat the most Reese’s Pieces hadn’t worked last spring. Instead CJ broke a city record for eating the most donut holes in one minute. Let’s just say my fame disappeared when his name was printed in the
Pittsburgh Post
.
    After breakfast, Dad made us all walk over to the library together, weighed down with cleaning supplies, a vacuum, brooms, buckets, and Mom’s organizing bins.
    “Who donated all the money to do this work?” Emma asked, huffing, even though she’d managed to grab the two empty buckets.
    Mom grunted. “It was an anonymous donation by someone,” she said. “And a pretty big one.”
    An anonymous donation? I never could understand why anyone would want to be anonymous when theywere doing something good like donating money. And now, trying to think of a way to be recognized, it seemed even sillier. Who in the world would want to do something that people would notice and then not tell a single soul? Not a middle child, I knew that much.
    “Here we go,” Dad said, unlocking the door and pushing it open. “Put the supplies over there. Just try not to block the bathrooms.”
    We trudged in, one after the other, and dropped the supplies, then looked around.
    The main room looked different as the morning sun filled the dusty windows. It wasn’t nearly as eerie, and I felt silly for being scared. Now the library reminded me of the fairy tale “Sleeping Beauty”: the castle, and everyone inside it, asleep because of a spell cast on it by the wicked witch.
    And we were going to awaken it.
    I took in the room, dusty corners to cobwebbed