Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty

Author:Megan McCafferty
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307345509
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2006-04-11T10:00:00+00:00

* * *

the fifth

When I stepped off the bus from New York City yesterday, I was convinced Pineville was the nexus for Armageddon.

“It's the end of the world!” I shouted.

“It's not a plague of locusts,” my dad shouted above the buzzing din. “They're the Brood X cicadas, the ones that only come out every seventeen years.”

“They're frightening!” I screamed, ducking a whirring insect that had nearly flown right into my head.

“You should have heard them a few weeks ago at their peak,” my dad said, brushing one off the door handle of his car. “It was like a bunch of motorcycles revving their engines in the trees. They're supposed to be gone by the end of June, but they just keep coming. They're loud, but harmless. You'll get used to the buzzing. It gets to be like white noise after a while.”

My mother, of course, had a different opinion.

“They're driving me crazy!” she said, swatting at them with her beige Coach handbag.

“How can you tell?” my dad asked. “Between your menopause craziness and your turning fifty craziness and everything else?”

“Forty-eight!” my mom cried.

Dad groaned. “Have you forgotten who you're lying to?”

I was surprised by my father's comments, not by the cruelty, but because this was the closest I had heard my parents come to a direct conversation in a year.

“They've ruined the holiday!” my mother said, ignoring my father. “Bethany said she wouldn't dream of bringing Marin here when she heard the noise over the phone. I wanted to throw one last big barbecue, but who can enjoy themselves with this racket? I guess it will have to wait until Labor Day . . .”

“What do you mean one last big barbecue?” I asked.

Mom looked guilty. Dad kept his eyes on the road.

“Go ahead, Helen,” my dad said. “Tell her the news.”

Mom rearranged her features into her patented “Isn't it delightful?!” face.

“I sold the house!” she said.

“What?”

“We're moving!”

I looked at my dad for confirmation.

“Is this true?” I asked.

“Apparently so,” my dad replied with a weighted-down weariness that I was getting more and more accustomed to hearing.

For the rest of the ride home from the bus station, my mom prattled on about how she hadn't intended on selling the house but she'd held an open house for other Realtors to show off the rooms that she had staged in the hopes of drumming up interest in her fledgling business and one of the Realtors mentioned that she had a couple who were looking for a house in the area exactly like this one, they even had a little infant boy and they would likely pay top dollar for the house if all the furnishings were included and then she heard that Pineville had zoned prime property for new townhomes and when she heard what they were selling for she was stunned and knew she had to get in on it especially with interest rates on the rise . . .

“So, Mom,” I cut in. “When do you have to be out

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