Help Yourself by Rachel Michael Arends

Author:Rachel Michael Arends
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626815353
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2015-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

I remove the earbuds and set the iPod beside Fritz, who’s now playing chess with Uncle Max in the living room.

“Was it a good show?” Fritz asks without looking up.

“I didn’t listen to the whole thing. It was weird,” I say.

“Weirder than usual?” he asks.

“Yes, sir. Hey, since you claim to know everything about me…”

“You claim I don’t,” he cuts me off.

“Be careful of Fritz’s claims, Merry! I’m sure he thinks he knows more than he does. For example, he thinks he knows what my clever brother had planned for his London house.”

Fritz folds his arms across his chest and shakes his head in annoyance.

“Why isn’t that settled yet?” I ask.

“Claude was very cagey.” Uncle Max chuckles, but soon begins to cough.

Fritz gets up and brings him a glass of water, apparently forgetting he was mad at him just a second ago.

When Uncle Max is himself again, I make another try at getting a straight answer.

“Fritz, just tell me: do you have any idea why my Aunt Betty is so strange?”

“Can you be more specific?” he asks. Fritz is so stiff and short sometimes; he reminds me of an English butler on TV.

“Why does she have to act so superior to my mom and grandma all the time? And why did she have to say such mean things on that show just now? Why is she so darn selfish?”

Fritz looks at me like he did on that first day, when I came to believe that he’d really help me if I went along with him. He looks like he might even care a little.

“The questions you ask are complicated and subjective, and I wouldn’t attempt to answer them, even if I could. However, I will share some facts that you do not yet know. Your Aunt Betty remortgaged her house to save your grandmother’s. Now she is nearly broke herself.”

“Really?” I ask.

“Indeed.”

I shake my head, trying to take that in.

“So the money I might earn, if I do everything you say while I’m here, could save my grandma’s house and also help Aunt Betty?”

“If you chose to use it that way,” Fritz says.

“Of course I would. Those are my people.”

The oven timer buzzes. “And that’s my cake!” Max says.

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