Stealing Our Way Home Page 20

  Silver turned around for the third time to check our progress. “You guys are doing great!” she said. “Are you having fun?”

  “No,” Russell said flatly. “This is boring.”

  I poked him in the back when he said that, but secretly I agreed. Now that Roo had proven she was no runner, moving along at a snail’s pace was barely more interesting than watching grass grow.

  “You can ask her to go a little faster, if you want.” Silver raised her eyebrows. “Just squeeze her around the belly with your legs and make a clicking sound with your mouth.”

  “No, Russell.” I spoke in a low voice behind him. “No way.”

  “Wren says no!” Russell shouted. “She’s afraid!”

  It took all my energy not to dig my finger into his back.

  “It’s okay,” Silver said. “It’s your first time out. It’s probably better if you just keep things nice and slow.” I could feel her eyes on me. I stared at the back of Russell’s head.

  Ten more minutes passed. I eyed Silver nervously as we approached the opposite side of the pasture. Not thirty feet ahead of us was the beginning of a trail that led up the west side of Creeper Mountain. Witch Weatherly’s side of Creeper Mountain. It was so clotted with dead branches at the front that it was nearly impossible to imagine what lay beyond it, but I could see it perfectly in my mind’s eye. A dark, pitted road, edged with claw-sized thorns. Overhead, a carpet made of thickly strung leaves and vines probably blocked even the smallest thread of sunlight. The faint rustle of dry leaves as hornet-head snakes glided beneath them. A raven’s shriek in the distance. I shut my eyes to block it out.

  “Man!” Silver sounded downright disappointed as she surveyed the bottom of the trail.

  “What man?” Russell asked.

  “No, I mean, look at that trail.” Silver pointed, and shook her head. “I betcha that’s the one that leads right up to Witch Weatherly’s house. But look at all those branches and thorns! It’d take a weed whacker to get through all that stuff. Maybe even two.”

  “You’re not s’posed to go up to Witch Weatherly’s house,” Russell said. “I even heard your mom say that.”

  “We shouldn’t be this close to the mountain.” I hoped Silver couldn’t hear the fear in my voice. But really, what was she doing? If she was comfortable going against her mother’s rules and heading up to visit Witch Weatherly, that was her problem. But it was another thing entirely for her to drag Russell and me into it. Especially when we were both stuck on top of a horse.

  “Oh, I know.” Silver sounded distracted. “We won’t stay long. I just want to see something.” She threw one leg over Manchester and slid off him.

  “What’re you doing?” My fear was being replaced with anger. Had this been Silver’s whole purpose of taking us out here to begin with? Had she staged the whole horse ride just so she could poke around out here? See where it was she needed to go to interview Witch Weatherly? “Silver, come on,” I urged. “We should go.”

  “Wait, I thought I saw something.” Silver held up one hand as she moved toward the trail. “Hold on.”

  Russell glanced back at me and then turned around again. “Don’t go in there, Silver! It’s bad!”

  “Silver,” I pleaded. “Please.”

  “Shhh … ” She put her fingers to her lips. “I thought I heard … ”

  I held my breath as she moved closer toward the mouth of the trail. Beneath us, Roo chewed noisily, but there was another sound, too … Rustling. Something—or someone—was shifting against the leaves. I could smell something like a match being lit and hear the sound of a twig snapping. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a wide red shape flit through the pine trees. It fluttered once, and then disappeared.

  “It’s the red raven!” I screamed, yanking on Roo’s reins. “We have to get out of here! It’s going to claw our eyes out!”

  Russell popped up in the saddle, nearly falling off. “Where?” he yelled. “I don’t see any red raven! Where is it?”

  The red shape appeared behind the leaves again, but closer this time, as if moving in for the kill. Slowly, it began to rise, the sharp beak first, followed by the sound of steady flapping. Russell threw his head back and bellowed. I screamed so loud that something in my ear popped and I kicked Roo as hard as I could. The horse reared up wildly and, before either of us had a moment to breathe, took off in a dead run.

  Also by Cecilia Galante

  The World from Up Here

  Copyright © 2017 by Cecilia Galante

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Galante, Cecilia, author.

  Title: Stealing our way home / Cecilia Galante.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Scholastic Press, 2017. | Summary: When Pippa and Jack’s mother died of cancer their world seemed to fall apart: Pippa stopped talking altogether, and Jack started picking fights, and neither of them knows how to cope with the painful and awkward sympathy from their friends and classmates—but when they learn that their father’s business is failing and he is growing desperate for money they realize that there is a possibility that they will lose another parent, this time to jail.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016051620 | ISBN 9781338042962 (hardcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Bereavement—Juvenile fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Juvenile fiction. | Father and child—Juvenile fiction. | Families—Juvenile fiction. | Friendship—Juvenile fiction. | Bank robberies—Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Grief—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Father and child—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Bank robberies—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.G12965 Stk 2017 | DDC 813.6 [Fic] —dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016051620

  First edition, July 2017

  Cover art © 2017 by Mike Heath

  Cover design by Nina Goffi

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-04298-6

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.