The absence of wind today means we're spared the smell of manure from the Roth's farm across the valley. This year all we've found is the same old crabgrass, same old bugs, same old us. My father said it might have been from the Blackhawk War, the one that Abe Lincoln fought in when he was young. Last summer we found an arrowhead half buried under a bush. Every day we explore the hills, the valley in between, the ravine, the woods. We entertain ourselves by pretending there is still some square inch of countryside that we haven't discovered yet. We already live out in the country, with all the fresh air we could want.

As we stumble down the familiar path of tall, sun-bleached grass and dry earth, I can feel the air thickening, preparing for a storm.Īt thirteen, Jenna and I are much too old for day camp. If we lived a little farther south, a tumbleweed would tumble by. August has rolled around too soon, and we only have a few more weeks before eighth grade starts.

The sweat dripping down my face is enough of an answer. 'Could it be any hotter out?' Jenna asks, panting with the effort to keep her footing on the slippery slope.

I like the poster because it is in black and white to everyone else, but inside my head, it's in color. Each letter of the alphabet has a rhyme about a little kid meeting some bizarre end. 'B is for Basil, assaulted by bears,' I reply, continuing the morbid rhyme we memorized off the poster on my bedroom wall. Let's just say that Ken won't be having children anytime soon and leave it at that. We bonded over the various ways we could contort my Barbie and Ken dolls without breaking them. We've been inseparable since we were five and her mother brought her to my house to play. 'A is for Amy who fell down the stairs,' says my best friend, Jenna Davis, as we climb farther down into the steep, parched ravine. The text was set in Janson Text, and the display type is Providence Sans. The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc. Quote from The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Visit our Web site at First eBook Edition: November 2008 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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