Suspect Red by L.M. Elliott

Author:L.M. Elliott [Elliott, L.M.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2017-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

“So, what did you think of her?”

Richard had a mouthful of warm roasted chestnuts he was eating from a bag. After climbing up and down the twenty-two-story-high Statue of Liberty, they’d come back across the waters on a ferry. As soon as they landed at Battery Park, they’d purchased the sweet nuts from a street vendor, his truck a wonderful warm caldron of steam. Richard had wanted to crawl into it. He felt frozen solid. Winds had hit Bedloe’s Island so brutally that the statue shivered as they stood inside her.

“Amazing,” he mumbled, as he finished chewing. “I didn’t realize that she’s completely hollow, like a big huge bell.”

“Yup. The statue’s hull is only the thickness of two pennies. Can you believe? Maybe I should become a sculptor.”

Richard laughed. He’d come to realize that Vladimir just kind of wanted to be anything that was awesome and hip.

“And the doll ahead of us on those stairs wasn’t so bad either, was she?”

Richard blushed, remembering how Vladimir had caught him glancing up the skirts of the pretty girl ahead of them. He didn’t mean to, honest. The spiral stairs were just so narrow and steep, everyone climbing them was on top of one another. When she stepped up, his head was basically at her ankles. He switched the subject to the swirling steps. “That staircase was unbelievable.”

“You know, they were thinking they’d have to fill her with sand to keep her from falling over until someone got the bright idea to ask Gustave Eiffel to figure out something different. She’s balanced and braced like the Eiffel Tower. You should see that someday, too, Rich. It’s…it’s…extraordinaire, as Parisians would say—how something that delicate-looking could stand so strong.”

“Wait. You’ve seen the Eiffel Tower, too?” Vladimir had told him a lot about London and Prague. All Richard had been able to educate him about were the Delaware beaches, Monticello, the Smithsonian Castle, and Luray Caverns. “Is there any place you haven’t seen?”

“Are you joking me? The world! I want to go to Istanbul and Cairo and Hong Kong. And Copenhagen. Oh, and Saint Petersburg—I mean Leningrad.”

“Russia? For real?”

“Sure! Saint Petersburg, anyway. The Winter Palace is supposed to be as great as Versailles. Hopefully, someday, Dad will have a diplomatic mission there, and I can tag along.”

They sat down on a wrought iron bench, looking back across the churned-gray waters toward the statue, the Brooklyn Bridge to their left. Richard finished his last chestnut. They’d been surprisingly delicious. But he was ready to get back inside a building now. “When are we supposed to meet your mom?”

“She said she’d be here at three o’clock.” Vladimir pulled his glove back to check his wristwatch, and then wound it. “About twenty minutes. We got here faster than I thought we would. Mom’s always late, too.”

They both hunched down and crossed their arms, tucking their hands under their armpits for extra warmth.

“This is stupid,” Vladimir grumbled within a few minutes. “I could have walked us back across the bridge to the Heights.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.