So I stand with my mug of tea that I didn’t ask for, and walk toward the stairs. I turn around in the doorway and call his name one last time. “Gramps!”

He turns around and looks at me then. “Yeah, Sass?”

“Nothing. Just—good night.”

“Sleep tight,” he whispers.

Chapter 14

STICKS AND STONES

The sound of my alarm clock is the worst noise in the entire world, which is why I can’t figure out why I would press the snooze button so many times. I want to keep sleeping, but then I have to hear the blasted buzzing over and over again!

On the tenth time I hit snooze, Mama swings my bedroom door open. “Sadie!” She doesn’t sound happy. I open one eye. She doesn’t look happy either. Hands on hips, scrunched face. “You need to get up!”

“Five more minutes,” I mumble, and turn over, pulling the covers up over my head.

Next thing I know: BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

I slam the alarm clock until the noise stops.

Before I even have a chance to get comfy again, the blankets are pulled right off me.

My eyelids fly open.

“Arrrgh, Noah!” I shout, jumping out of bed. “Moms!”

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” he mutters.

“Gee, I wonder why?”

“Grumpelstiltskin,” he teases, using that word they used to call me when I was little and I would get into a bad mood. It’s just another way for him to call me “toddler” without it sounding quite as mean.

“Noah, you are an ugly jerk-head, butt-face dork, and I cannot stand you!”

Of course, that is the exact moment Moms show up.

“Sadie,” Mama gasps. “Do not call your brother names like that!”

“But he called me—ugh, never mind!” I pick my blankets up off the floor, muttering under my breath.

“What?” Mom asks, coming in my room to help me spread the comforter out over my bed. “What did he call you, Sadie? I’m listening.”

“Grumpelstiltskin.”

Mom starts laughing, but Mama gives her one of those teacher looks of hers and Mom quickly covers her mouth. “Sorry, Sade—it’s just, you do seem a little grumpel—grumpy, I mean.”

I’m out the door in record time.

When I get to the bus stop, Macy isn’t there. I wait, but by the time the bus pulls up she still hasn’t arrived. No one talks to me the entire ride to school. Which is fine with me. My head is all fizzy and floaty. I don’t even remember falling asleep last night. My mind just kept running through the list of things (or people) I’m worried about right now:

Gramps.

Dewey.

Jude.

On repeat.