Read Online Extraordinary October by Diana Wagman - Free Book Online

held onto my shoulders with both hands and looked into my eyes. She was a pretty woman usually, but her face was as pale as the nightgown she wore and everything was sagging, her eyes, her mouth, her shoulders.
    â€œWe don’t know,” she said. Then she actually shook me. “Unless you know something. October, do you know where she is?”
    â€œNo, no, I don’t.” I pulled myself out of her grasp. “Jeb came by my house. He found, we found, her Frisbee.”
    She sat down at the kitchen table. She rested her head in her hands. “I knew this would happen one day.”
    â€œYou mean her dad coming to get her?”
    â€œOne day,” she said it almost to herself. “What could we do?” She looked up at me and her eyes were hard and squinty—as if she was angry with me. “It was a mistake coming here. I should have said no, but Luisa wanted it so badly.”
    â€œThey’ll find her,” I said. “The police are good at finding deadbeat dads. Even if he took her back to Mexico.”
    â€œYou have no idea,” she said. “Oh October.” She gave me a small, bitter smile. “You are really clueless, aren’t you?” She looked me up and down. “And why? For what?” Then she put her head down on the table and cried.
    I didn’t know what she was talking about. I had the creeps as I walked back through the yard to my car. A breeze rattled the palm fronds and I jumped.
    â€œThis is all your fault.” A woman’s voice, as clear as my own, whispered in my ear. I spun. There was no one behind me. There was no one anywhere. I was all alone standing by my car. It wasn’t Luisa’s mom’s voice. It wasn’t mine. It had to be my imagination. It had to be.

7. Two Days Until My Birthday
    I was exhausted the next morning. I’d been frightened driving home and then running up my front walk and even inside my house. I checked under my bed and, after arming myself with my ancient red Elmo flashlight, looked inside the closet. I thought I was too old to be afraid of the dark, but that night all the terrors of my childhood came flooding back. Monsters, witches, vampires, and psycho murderers. I put a chair in front of the closet door and I kept the flashlight in bed beside me. Where was Luisa, my brain went round and round, where could she be and how could it be my fault? It wasn’t. It wasn’t. That voice was just my imagination saying the worst thing possible. The same too big imagination that pretended I could understand crows and cactus wrens and fireflies. I finally fell asleep just as the sun was coming up, a solid, heavy sleep without dreams. My alarm went off an hour later and I woke up stiff, my eyes puffy and my mouth dry. I wasn’t itching, but the bruise on my ankle had blossomed into a stylized kind of flower. I must have been scratching in my sleep because the red lines were dark blue like bruises and radiated from the flower shape, circling my calf. I definitely needed to wear my jeans to cover it up. Not that I ever wore skirts.
    When I plodded into the kitchen, Dad was making his favorite banana pancakes. It seemed he was back to his old, chipper self.
    â€œMorning. You look like you could use another couple of hours.”
    â€œDon’t worry,” I said. “I can nap in English.”
    â€œDon’t get cocky, Miss College Co-ed. English is still important. If you’re going to sleep, do it in Biology.”
    He laughed, of course, but for once I didn’t, and he looked at me with concern.
    â€œWhat’s up, Pumpkin? Bad dreams?”
    â€œLuisa’s missing.” I blurted it out. “Even Jed doesn’t know where she is.”
    My dad swayed as if someone had hit him. He held onto the counter.
    â€œWhat? Are you okay?”
    He turned to me, and his smile was big and fake. “They’ll find her. Not your problem. Don’t worry.”
    But his eyes