The Tiny Mansion by Keir Graff

Author:Keir Graff [Graff, Keir]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2020-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

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THE NEXT MORNING, after Trent drove off to the hardware store to see if the new spark plug had arrived, I went for a long walk down the road. At first, it felt funny because there wasn’t a sidewalk, and back home in the city, I definitely wouldn’t have walked in the street because if I had, a car would have come along in nothing flat and creamed me.

But here, there was no choice: if I didn’t walk in the road, I would have had to wade through weeds and bushes. Fortunately, there was hardly any traffic. The two times cars passed me, I heard them long before they showed up and moved over to the edge of the gravel. The driver of the first car gave me a friendly wave, but the driver of the second car held the wheel and squinted straight ahead like she didn’t even see me.

Every few minutes, I checked the bars on my phone. I had charged it before I sabotaged the generator, and the battery was still at 85 percent. It said NO SERVICE for what seemed like a couple of miles, but then finally I saw one bar.

I got so excited I practically ran the next hundred yards, but then it said NO SERVICE again. I was in a little canyon, which I thought might have been the problem, so I kept walking until I came out of it.

Finally, a half mile or so later, I suddenly had three bars. Right away I started getting notifications from my friends. I left the road, found a shady spot under a tree, and sat down and started reading. Every single message was about Imani’s birthday party, which had been the day before. It looked so fun. They watched a movie, went swimming, and then had a cookout on a patio with an amazing view of San Francisco Bay. Olivia’s grandfather had a really nice house.

From a video Nevaeh sent, it looked like it was too windy to light the birthday candles on the cake, but everyone laughed about it, and Imani pretended to blow them out anyway. There were even boys there! Imani had invited her cousin and two of his friends, but they looked awkward and uncomfortable. Olivia and Hailey sent some funny pictures of the boys sitting by themselves without talking and wrote, The life of the party!

The pictures and texts made me smile even though I felt super sad and lonely. I had to let them know I was still around.

First, I wrote, Happy birthday again, Imani! Sorry I missed your party!! Nice job, Olivia!!!

Then I took a picture of my view so they could see where I was sitting and wrote, Sorry I haven’t been texting more! Still trapped in the boonies. I miss you guys.

I stared at my phone, hoping to see somebody writing back, but there was no answer. That was weird, because my friends didn’t have problems with electricity or cell service, and they pretty much had their phones attached to their bodies 24/7.

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