Finding the Worm by Mark Goldblatt

Author:Mark Goldblatt [Goldblatt, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-39110-8
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2010-02-10T05:00:00+00:00

Still, as weird as that was, it was nowhere near as weird as what happened today. I was lying on my bed around five o’clock, not sleeping, not even shutting my eyes, just resting up and thinking about the weekend, when the phone rang. I thought for sure the call was for Amelia, since it’s Friday, and she gets like a dozen calls every Friday, but then my mom picked up the phone and yelled that it was for me. I figured it had to be Lonnie—maybe he was lying around thinking about the weekend too.

I hustled into the kitchen and took the phone. But it was Quentin on the other end, not Lonnie. He was talking, except his voice was more like a whisper, before I got the thing to my ear. “… you got to help me. You got to get this guy out of here.”

“Who?”

“Shlomo,” he whispered.

“He’s still there?”

“He’s been going at it for like two hours. I think he broke the machine, but he’s still playing.”

“How could he be playing if he broke the machine?”

“I don’t know,” Quentin said. “But he won’t leave.”

“Well, he has to leave soon. It’s almost sundown. He has to go home for Sabbath.”

“I’m telling you, Jules, the guy’s not going to leave.”

“Why don’t you get your dad to kick him out?” I said.

“He’s not home yet. Plus, I don’t want to do that to him.”

“You don’t want to do it to Shlomo or to your dad?”

“Either one,” he said.

“What about your mom?”

“I don’t want to kick him out. He can’t help himself.”

“Then what do you want?” I asked.

“I want him to go home,” he said.

“Should I call Lonnie?”

“No, Lonnie’s just going to kick him out.”

“Then tell me what you want me to do,” I said.

“Maybe you can talk to him.”

“What can I say to him that you can’t?”

“If I knew that, I’d say it to him. C’mon, Jules. I’m really tired.”

That got to me, the fact that Shlomo wasn’t letting Quentin rest. So I said goodbye and hung up the phone and headed over to Quentin’s house. I had to walk past Shlomo’s house on the way, and I could see through the front window. There was no sign of anything unusual. Mrs. Zizner was setting the table for Sabbath dinner. Mr. Zizner was already sitting at the head of the table, flipping through the pages of the newspaper. Shlomo’s older brother, Hiram, was sitting on the couch, getting in a last half hour of TV before sundown. I’m sure they were expecting Shlomo to walk through the front door any second.

I kept going until I got to the Hampshire House, and Quentin must’ve been watching out the window, because he buzzed me in about a second after I rang the bell. He was standing at the front door when the elevator opened on the fifth floor, and he led me back to his room. Mrs. Selig had a sour look on her face as I walked past her. The last thing she wanted, you could tell, was another guy in Quentin’s room.

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.