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Back The Cloud Chamber Save as PDF
Chapters (35)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Author’s Note
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Twenty-Two
  28. Twenty-Three
  29. Twenty-Four
  30. Twenty-Five
  31. Twenty-Six
  32. Twenty-Seven
  33. Twenty-Eight
  34. Twenty-Nine
  35. Thirty

“Wait till they hear about this at school,” said Junie. “Just let them try to make fun of you now. I’m telling everyone on the bus.”

“Not yet,” Nate told her. “I want people to think we’re just doing some dinky little report on stars or something. It’s better if we take them by surprise on the day of the science fair.”

“And then you’ll win,” Junie whispered. “And you’ll take me to the championships.” She didn’t have to say the other part. They both knew it.

Then they’d see their dad.

Twenty-Five

IT WAS THE NIGHT OF JUNIE’S PLAY, THE THREE LITTLE Pigs. After the show Poppa took everyone, including Uncle Harold and Aunt Sal, out to dinner to celebrate Junie’s performance as the little pig who built her house out of bricks. “I’m so proud to be the mother of the smartest little pig,” Mom said. Nate could tell she was trying hard to look carefree and happy, but it wasn’t as successful a performance as his sister’s had been.

The restaurant featured an all-you-can-eat salad bar, with a long counter covered with platters of roast beef, fried chicken, lasagna. Junie was too excited from the performance to eat, but she was walking around to tables that were empty, collecting paper parasols and plastic cocktail swords customers had left behind. Nate had gotten up for seconds.

When he returned, the conversation had shifted from Junie’s school play, but for once, the adults didn’t cut off their remarks in mid-sentence. Maybe things had finally got so bad that nobody saw the point in trying to conceal them anymore. Maybe they were just too weary to try.

“The police brought in some big investigator from the city yesterday,” his mom said, moving spinach around on her plate. “They’re still stuck on that missing rifle.”

“Your fingerprints aren’t anywhere on that gun, right, Helen?” said Aunt Sal. “I bet in all the years you never even touched it.”

“That’s true enough,” Nate’s mother told her. “For all the good it does me, if they can’t even find the gun.”

“The crazy thing is, I can’t figure out how the thing could disappear like that,” Uncle Harold said.

“What about... you know . . . ,” Aunt Sal said, making a sign with her head, as if the children wouldn’t understand that she was asking about their father. “Isn’t he ever going to say something about what happened?”

Junie had returned to the table now, a bouquet of tiny pastel-colored paper parasols clutched in her hand. “Can you believe people just threw these away?” she said.

“I guess,” Mom said, signaling with her eyes to end the conversation as quickly as possible, “I guess they just can’t pull him back from outer space to remember.”