Read Online The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg - Free Book Online

movies.”
    William crossed his arms across his chest and said, “You have twenty-four seconds to list all the other talents you have.”
    Amedeo said, “Well, to start: I am a city child and a child of divorce.”
    â€œSeventeen seconds.”
    â€œMy mother is an executive.”
    â€œFourteen.”
    â€œI know what ASAP and per diem mean, and I know how to eat an artichoke.”
    William laughed out loud.
    â€œKnowing how to eat an artichoke is definitely a skill not to be laughed at. When entertaining clients at a fine restaurant that may not be listed—even in small type in the Yellow Pages—you sometimes have to eat an artichoke, and if you are there with my executive mother, you better know how to get to the heart of an artichoke . . .”
    â€œOr?”
    â€œOr . . . you don’t want to know.”
    â€œI do. I do want to know. Or what?”
    â€œOr you better order collard greens.”
    â€œNothing wrong with collard greens.”
    â€œWouldn’t know. Never had them.”
    â€œCity child,” William said and reached into his pocket, took out two china markers, and offered one to Amedeo. Amedeo took it as he would a baton in a relay.

T HE FLIGHT TO S HEBOYGAN WAS short and bumpy. Peter hardly knew if the pilot ever turned off the seat belt sign. As soon as he was buckled in and his briefcase stashed beneath the seat in front of him and the gray box securely placed in the overhead bin, he fell into a short, noisy, disordered sleep. Peter either snorted or snored through the announcement that they had reached cruising altitude and passengers were free to move about the cabin. He didn’t care. He was too tired to move. He had a dim sense that the flight attendant had come by, but he would not have lifted his head had she been bringing champagne, caviar, and toast points instead of juice and pretzels. Peter missed the airline peanuts. He hated that they had switched to pretzels—peanuts optional. He stirred when he heard the wheeze of the wheels unlock, but he did not fully awaken until he heard, “Please return your seats to their full upright and locked positions.”Peter had nothing to return. His seat as well as his reading glasses had been full upright and locked for the whole ride.
    He left the plane and was halfway down the concourse before he remembered that he had checked his bag because he had carried on the gray box. He retraced his steps and waited at baggage claim. Like every other part of this journey, the wait was endless.
    Peter Vanderwaal did not own a car and did not drive. He found a pay phone and called a taxi. He waited on the curb by Ground Transportation, so tired his toenails ached.
    When he got to his apartment, he dropped his briefcase by his desk, wheeled his suitcase to the foot of his bed, and put the gray box in the corner of the closet in his spare room. He would break a lifelong habit and wait until morning to unpack. He showered and got into bed. He set the alarm for early the next morning.
    He was up before the alarm went off and immediately unpacked. And then as soon as he dropped the lid on the hamper holding his soiled clothes, he shaved, dressed, and left for his office.
    He would say later that as he slit the first envelope in the waiting mail, the fatigue and the pain of the past week consolidated into a neutrino that bounced around insidehis head, firing up every circuit. The envelope contained the list of the thirty works of Modern art that had been selected for Sheboygan for the exhibition that he, Peter Vanderwaal, had been responsible for bringing to town. (Applause! Applause!)
    Like most students of art history, Peter Vanderwaal knew some of the sad, twisted history of Modern art under Hitler’s Third Reich, but he had never concentrated on it until he took a trip to San Francisco to see a collection called Degenerate “Art.”
    Peter had been fascinated by the art he