Super Max and the Mystery of Thornwood's Revenge by Susan Vaught

Author:Susan Vaught
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books

14

Despite the bright noon sun, it was so cold on the front porch of Thornwood Manor that I thought my lips would turn to ice and break straight off my face.

“I am not stubborn,” I told Captain Coker and Lavender, who were busy freezing to death with me, one on either side of my chair, our backs to the scary door owls holding the scary door thorns. “The school and my therapist said I was impulsive, that I get mad too easy, and I stomp on people’s feelings. BUT I AM NOT STUBBORN.”

Also, I wasn’t hot anymore. Not even a little bit. One of the benefits of sitting outside at a haunted house, where my mother wasn’t.

“You don’t stomp on people’s feelings,” Lavender said. “Not anymore, except for your mom’s.”

I rubbed my eyes, noting that she didn’t argue with me about the impulsive-get-mad part. “Yeah, well, excuse me if being mean to Mom is a path to the Dark Side. That still doesn’t mean I’m stubborn.”

“I have evidence to the contrary,” Captain Coker said a little slowly, like her own lips had gone numb. “You absolutely would not wait in the kitchen for your mother like you were told, you drove that chair like an off-road vehicle across a field full of sticks and rocks and hay and up a big hill to sulk in front of a spooky house in freezing weather, you refused to speak to me until Lavender here arrived, and let’s not forget the part where you ran over your grandfather’s toes when he came up here and asked you to come home.” She paused, blew her breath into her palms, and rubbed her hands together. “I’d file all that under capital-S stubborn.”

“Thornwood may stink,” I admitted, “and the cold, too, but at least I’m not having to talk to her. And I won’t. Not until I choose to.”

Lavender shivered in her dance clothes covered by purple warm-ups covered by her purple coat, mittens, and scarf. “Max’s relationship with her mother is complicated.”

“I get that,” Captain Coker said, studying something way off in the distance. “My mother didn’t want a thing to do with me becoming a police officer. Thought it was too dangerous. She didn’t talk to me for two solid years when I went to the Law Enforcement Academy.”

“That’s harsh,” Lavender said. “How did you get past it?”

Captain Coker tilted her head like she was thinking. “Time, I guess. She got more proud than scared as years went by.”

“She should be proud,” I said. “You’re good at your job, I think. Right?”

“People make mistakes,” Captain Coker said. “Mistakes don’t have to be the end of the world—or even the end of relationships.”

Lavender laughed. “Nobody gets to end a relationship with their mother. She’s . . . Mom, and stuff.”

“Oh, you can end a relationship with anybody if you try hard enough,” Captain Coker said. “Even parents. You can close your mouth, your heart, your mind—you can blow up relationships, or starve them to death. Right, Max?”

I didn’t answer.

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