Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1) by Babette Jongh (inspiring books for teens txt) 📗

available online and even had its own Facebook page, I saw no earthly use for the printed version.

When I came back inside, the phone was ringing, and I snatched it up right away. If it hadn’t already woken the kids, I didn’t want it to. “Hello?”

“Casey, it’s Ian. Don’t hang up.”

My heart flipped over and started beating way too fast, a flock of pigeons fighting to get out of my chest. “I won’t hang up.”

“When can we talk?”

“We’re talking right now.”

“When can we get together? I don’t want to do this over the phone.”

“Do what? What are you planning to do that you didn’t do last night? You’ve already told me you’re leaving. What else is there?”

A long silence stretched out, and I envisioned Ian counting to ten, hanging onto his temper by a thread. Good.

“Sweetheart, I know you’re angry.”

I snorted.

“You have every right to be mad at me. I should have told you from the beginning that I didn’t intend to stay in Angel Falls.”

I didn’t say anything, which led to another long silence. I hoped he was pulling his hair out.

“When does Ben get home?”

“Tomorrow.”

“What time?”

“Afternoon.”

“I’ll see you then.”

“I don’t think—”

But I was talking to myself. He’d already hung up.

*

“Okay, kids.” I pulled into the driveway of the empty house by the canal and cut the engine. “You can open your eyes now.”

“Whose house is this?” Jake asked.

“We’ll talk about that in a minute.” I unbuckled Amy’s car seat. “Get out, everybody.”

I carried Amy to the front stoop and set her onto her feet so I could unlock the door. Everyone followed me inside.

“Wow.” Maryann’s voice echoed off the bare walls. “This is nice.”

Jake gave me a sidelong look. “Whose house is this?”

“Yours, if y’all and your daddy like it. What would you think about that?”

Jake scoffed. “You mean move away from Nicky and all my friends in the neighborhood? No way.”

“Your friends are only a bike-ride away.”

“But I love my room at home,” Maryann whined.

Amy skipped across the living room floor and examined the pocket door between the living room and the dining room. “Look, it slides.”

They wandered the first floor, peeking into doorways, looking out windows.

“Look, Jake,” Maryann squealed from the kitchen. “The back yard is huge.”

“That big tree looks good for climbing,” I said. “Maybe your dad would build y’all a tree house.”

“Tree house!” Amy shrieked, enjoying the echo in the empty rooms downstairs.

Maryann pulled at my sleeve. “Can I go upstairs?”

“Sure. Just for fun, why don’t you decide which bedroom you’d like best?”

Jake pushed past her and rushed up the stairs two at a time. “I’m getting first pick!”

“No fair,” she screeched, pelting up the stairs behind him. “You meanie, I get first pick.”

I followed more slowly, holding Amy’s hand. “If you and your daddy decide you want to move, he can help you choose which room you want.”

Jake poked his head out the open doorway of the room he’d just entered. “I don’t want to move.”

“Me, neither.” Maryann followed Jake into one of the bedrooms overlooking the canal. “But if we do, I want this room. Aunt Casey,” she called. Amy and I made it up the stairs and joined them. “It’s bigger than my room at home, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Much bigger. And look,” I opened the lid on a built-in window seat. “A toy box.”

Jake went on to explore the rest of the upstairs. “I found my room,” he yelled from across the hall. “Come see.”

We followed his voice to the largest of the four rooms. It had a dormer window on the street side and another that looked out at the branches of a large magnolia. Across from the dormer window, built-in bookshelves filled the entire wall.

“Look at this.” Jake opened a small door about three feet tall, revealing a crawl-space to the attic. “I could hide stuff in here.”

“Which room do you like best?” I asked Amy. She’d been unusually silent.

Her answer was a shrug.

“I think I know which one you’d like best.” I took her hand and led her to the second bedroom that faced the canal. It was connected to Maryann’s room by a shared bath.

“It’s almost the same as the one Maryann likes. See the window seat? It makes a good toy box. What do you think?”

Amy stuck a thumb into her mouth and shrugged again.

“We could paint the walls pink. You could put stars on the ceiling just like you have in your room now.”

Amy took her thumb out of her mouth with a wet-sounding pop. “The very same stars?”

“Yes, the very same stars. We could take them from your old room and bring them here.”

Amy sucked her thumb again for a moment, her fair brows knitted. “My toys, too?”

“We could bring everything in your house, if your daddy and y’all decide to live here.”

Amy looked undecided, sucking furiously on her thumb. She tugged the hem of my shirt as if yanking the bell-pull of an old-time hotel. I knelt down and put my arms around her. She pulled my ear until I brought my head close to her mouth.

“But how will mommy find us when she comes home?” Amy asked in a small voice. “How will she know where we are?”

“Oh, sweetheart.” I looked to see whether Jake or Maryann had heard. It seemed they hadn’t.

“Can we go see the back yard?” Maryann asked.

“Sure. You two go ahead. Amy and I will catch up.”

Jake started down the stairs. “I want to go in the canal.”

“Me, too.” Amy pulled my hand, her forlorn question forgotten for the moment, so we followed the two older kids down the stairs.

“We’ll stand at the back of the yard and look down.” I had played in the canal as a child. So had every other kid I’d known. It was a slippery, forbidden place dug twenty feet deep and at least as wide, out of the limestone the town of Angel Falls was built on. Built for drainage so long ago that no one I knew remembered when, it snaked