Chapter 2

Chapter 2 The Man of the Family Normally, they would have walked into the house through the back door. But there was no back door. There was hardly even a back wall. Evan couldn't believe it once they unlocked the front door and made their way through the dark into the kitchen. There was a hole in the back kitchen wall big enough to drive a car through. It looked like someone had driven a car straight through it, except that the edges of the hole were as black as coal and the smell of smoke was everywhere. Someone had taped heavy clear plastic to the wall, but one edge had come undone and was flapping in the wind.

"Where's Grandma's stove?" asked Jessie. "Well, duh," said Evan, a little more sharply than he'd meant to. "They had to get rid of it. It was probably melted down to nothing." "I thought you said it was a little fire," said Jessie. "I thought it was," said Mrs. Treski. "And why's it so cold?" "I guess the heat isn't working?" answered their mom. "I didn't realize..." Evan had never seen his mom so surprised. Usually, she handled just about anything that came her way: bats in the basement, a squirrel trapped in the chimney flue, the time that Jessie

got her head stuck between the railings on the stairs. No matter what, you could count on their mom to solve pretty much any problem. But now she just stared at the hole in the wall and didn't move. Evan reached under the sink and found the heavy Maglite that Grandma always kept there. He flashed the beam across the walls, looking for something— anything—that looked the way it was supposed to. "What's that?" asked Jessie. Evan shone the flashlight where Jessie was pointing. "Wow," said Evan. "That's a hole," said Mrs. Treski. There was a two-foot-wide hole that went straight through the kitchen ceiling, which meant there was a hole in the floor upstairs. "What room are we under?" Evan thought about how the rooms upstairs were laid out, but it was hard to piece it together. Was it Grandma's bedroom? Or Mom's

old room? Jessie came up with the answer first. She was good with maps. "It's Evan's room." Oh, great, thought Evan. All three of them trooped upstairs, Evan leading the way with the flashlight. Sure enough, all the doors to the upstairs rooms were open except for the one that led to Grandma's office, which doubled as Evan's bedroom when he visited. That door was shut tight with a layer of thick plastic taped over it. When they pushed it open, they found the hole in the floor. Both windows were shattered, the glass lying in shards scattered across the room. Again, someone had taped plastic around the edges, but the wind had teased its way in. When it blew outside, handfuls of snow gusted into the room and landed on the floor. "You can't sleep in here, Evan," said his mom. "I don't even want the two of you coming into this room at all. I'll clean up the glass tomorrow."

"Where am I going to sleep?" Evan asked. Ever since he was out of a crib, this had been his room at Grandma's house. He couldn't imagine sleeping anywhere else. "Well, for tonight, why don't you sleep in Grandma's room?" "No way," said Evan. There was something just not right about sleeping in his grandmother's bed. It was hers. "I'll sleep on the couch in the living room." "Okay. It's probably going to be the warmest room in the house." The living room had a wood-burning stove that heated the whole downstairs. "I'll get the fire going, while you two unpack the car. Is it a plan?" That sounded like the mother Evan was used to. He headed back out into the dark yard to start hauling in the suitcases and bags of groceries. "This is weird," said Jessie, grabbing the handle of the biggest suitcase in the car.

"You can't carry that," said Evan. His sister was small for her age and weighed less than fifty pounds, but for some reason she always thought she could lift heavy stuff. "Let me do it. You take that one." He threw his weight into pulling the suitcase out of the trunk. It landed on the ground with a loud ca-thunk. "What's weird?" he asked. "Everything," said Jessie. "Nothing is the way it's supposed to be." "Well, relax. Grandma will be here tomorrow, and Mom said she already hired some guy to fix the wall. Anyway, we're not staying long. Maybe just three days. And it's still Grandma's house. How weird can it be?" But he knew exactly what Jessie meant. Evan dragged the suitcase into the house, then walked back out to the car to get the food. Three days of sleeping on the couch. Three days with no room of his own. Three days without his friends. Evan couldn't wait to go home.