The Sound and the Furry by Kassandra Lamb

Author:Kassandra Lamb [Lamb, Kassandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: misterio press LLC

The nap didn’t help much. I was still exhausted.

My growling stomach had awakened me. Leaving the dogs in my room, I went in search of a couple pieces of bread to make a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

Greta almost caught me in the act. “Oh good, you are awake. I was about to ring the bell. I am sorry lunch is so late. I have much to prepare.”

Crapola. I hadn’t missed lunch after all.

I wandered into the dining room. Ellie was already there, at the head of the table, but no Bruce yet. And again, the wheelchair was nowhere to be seen.

I grabbed a plate and loaded it with wheat and tuna triangles. I passed on the bland pasta salad, since there was no salt handy to put on it.

Greta bustled in with a big bowl of fruit salad. She set it down on the sideboard.

Ellie turned toward her. “Could you make some pumpernickel sandwiches with the tuna spread, please?”

Greta’s eyes went a little wide, but then the corners of her mouth twitched upward. “Of course.”

“I’m not going to be eating wheat bread for a while.”

I revised my assumption that the woman at the table was Ellie. The voice was crisp, not timid. More likely Lori.

“But I baked a dozen loaves, to get us through the storm.” Now Greta’s mouth was turned down.

I raised my hand and gave her a small wave. “I’ll eat them up. I love wheat bread.”

“Ya, okay. I will bake more pumpernickel, but I do not have as much rye flour.” The housekeeper hurried out of the room.

I helped myself to some fruit salad and sat down at my usual spot catty-cornered to Ellie’s… um, Lori’s place.

She had already taken some of the pumpernickel triangles and was scraping the white gunk off of them. “I’m thinking that Brucey may be right about one thing. I might be allergic to wheat, or maybe it’s the gluten.” She popped a piece of the dark bread into her mouth.

I doubted it was gluten—her symptoms were not consistent with Celiac disease, but I couldn’t deny that she was doing better.

“I have noticed,” I said, “that the less you have eaten at some meals, the stronger you are later in the day.”

She nodded. “And the trend I’m seeing is that when I don’t eat the wheat bread, I feel better. And when I do eat it, I feel queasy. That’s gotten a lot better now.”

Okay, that could be gluten intolerance. Fortunately, I didn’t have that problem. I popped my second sandwich triangle into my mouth. Like last night’s rolls, the bread seemed drier, but Greta had made the layer of spread thicker.

Quite tasty. I wolfed down a third little sandwich, then leaned in closer. “Look, before Bruce gets here, I need to tell–”

“He and Jack are making a last circuit of the island, making sure everything is battened down, the woodshed and the beach house and all.”

I pulled back and blurted out, “You know about the beach house?”

She gave me a funny look.

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.