Read Online Made to Love by DL Kopp - Free Book Online Page A

definitely light in their room—and motion.  And when
did my dad put a lightning rod on top of his tower?
    “ He’s up to something
again,” I muttered, glaring in his general vicinity.
    My dad was fond of bizarre
experiments, so it wasn’t too surprising.  He had started out
in his native Hungary as a freelance scientist, but a private
organization in the United States had recognized his brilliance and
paid for him to become a citizen and move across the
pond.
    Since then, he had worked
at a variety of universities – one of which was the place he met my
mom, not too shabby a scientist herself – and now finally for the
private corporation again in Oregon.
    He was a biologist by
trade, but a real Renaissance man of science by hobby—he was great
at chemistry, and physics, and everything else that required a good
brain for numbers and a persistent desire to experiment.  Ever
since I was a small girl, he had dedicated long hours to building
strange machines and concocting odd potions.  Our entire house
in Georgia, except my bedroom, had housed something of his as it
bubbled and fermented.
    I pulled one of my fat
chairs around to the window and sat down to watch him work from a
distance.  My dad and I had once been really close, but when I
hit high school age and refused to be sent to a boarding school for
the scientifically minded – I loved poetry too much to be forced to
do experiments all day like him – that had been the end of our
amiable relationship.
    But what in the world was
he doing at four in the morning?
    Something moved outside the
tower, and I sat up straight, squinting my eyes to try to make out
detail through the rain.
    Was that… my dad? 
Crawling on the roof of the tower?
    “ He’s trying to connect
wire to the lightning rod,” I muttered.  Great.  My dad
was going to get struck by lightning and killed.
    As though to agree with me,
a clap of thunder burst overhead.
    I shivered, but tried not
to worry.  He was a professional.
    Yeah, right.
    I distracted myself by
pulling out my book binding paraphernalia.  I didn’t want to
make an entire new poetry book yet – I liked to wait until I had
about a hundred new poems – but I could at least make them look
nice while I continued to write.
    Preparing the string and
covers, I continued to throw occasional glances to my working
dad.  He was still on the roof.
    “ What an idiot,” I
muttered, wrapping the covers in recycled paper I had made
myself.  I had already put holes in the cardboard underneath,
just waiting for the pink yarn to thread through them.
    My dad started to climb
down the roof and slipped.
    I dropped my book, staring
out the window.  He hung from the roof by one hand. 
“Crap,” I hissed.  “He’s going to kill himself.”
    I ran down the stairs and
out my bedroom door, hoping I could get there in time to save my
father’s life.

Chapter
Twenty-One
     
    My parents' room was still
much like mine, but with more stuff.  That made it easy to run
up the steps of the tower and stick my head out the window: no
wasted time figuring out where things were.  Although it would
have served certain reckless jerks right if I had.
    Dad was hanging just out of
reach, trying to grab the storm drain with his other hand.  It
wasn't going so well.
    “ Dad!”
    “ Calliope!”  It was a
measure of how much he did stupid stuff that he didn't fall
completely when he heard my voice.
    “ What are you doing?” I
screamed over the roar of the storm.
    He scowled.  “I told
you--”
    His free hand slipped, and
he swung dramatically.  He cried out, and I gave a
high-pitched scream.
    “ I'm fine ,” Dad
yelled back.  “Just...give me a hand?”
    I reached out, but he was
still too distant to grab from just the window. 
Perfect.
    “ If I die doing this,” I
said, shaking my head.  “I am so haunting
you!”
    With a shudder, I swung
onto the ledge outside the window.  It was stone, and
slippery, so my foot lost traction almost