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Moose Attacks | Shook Chapter 21 Part 3
Dyan and Mr. Fletcher maneged to escape the moose, and continue their route through the forest...
They drove down a road covered with forest on either side with nicely mowed lime-green lawns, and huge, three-story brick homes in the clearings between.
Mr. Fletcher drove off the road onto a smooth dirt path, and past an open black gate to a huge red-brick house with evergreens at both its sides. In front of the house was a woman in a gray sweater and coat with hands clasped in front of her. Her smile showed her bright teeth as the car pulled into the path in front of the house.
Dyan barely noticed the woman. She was too focused on the humongous house behind her. There were about six arch-shaped windows on each floor, two of those rows being in the brick part of the house, and the last set of windows built into the gray shutters of the roof, which appeared to be pulled down like a beanie hat. There were two chimneys sticking out of opposite sides of the house. The small front porch had pillars lined up all the way to the door. The whole place was massive, and Dyan had to back up to see the whole place clearly.
“You wouldn’t want a bug to fly into that mouth would you?” The bundled up woman walked over to Dyan. Dyan quickly closed her mouth and answered “No,” even though she didn’t have to.
“Well. Hi, I’m Madalia, and I’m your new caregiver!”
“Hi,” Dyan answered. She had lived with many ‘caregivers’, ‘foster parents’ and ‘Misses so-and-sos’ that she knew that once the first week or so was over, her caregiver wouldn’t be so perky and nice and she be one of the many, many foster kids that they would be yelling at.
Madalia said goodbye to the taxi driver and wasted no time giving Dyan a quick tour of the place. Madalia explained that there were two sets of stairway leading upstairs, the one past the ginormous kitchen, and the one with the balcony that overlooked the fireplace. The stairs Dyan could use were with the balcony, and the one past the kitchen led to Madalia’s room and was off limits. Dyan tried to pay attention to Madalia’s tour, but there were so many different rooms in nearly every direction! When she started counting she had already seen eight rooms, and she was only downstairs.
By the time the sky was as dark as a shadow, Madalia and Dyan had made it upstairs. She flipped on the light-switch to a bedroom with lots of wooden bunk beds.“And here’s your new room!”
This room was not nearly as pretty or comforting as the Blue sisters room back in NC. These bunks were built with one at the top, and one at the bottom and were lined up in rows across the room. The beds were chipped in so many places and there were scars and scratches on every one. There was one pillow per bed and the sheets were a plain hospital blue. There was a tiny plastic bucket by the window filled with stuffed animals.
“There are other girls that live here around your age, but they're at a sleepover right now. Anyway, dinner is downstairs, and I’ll get you signed up for the town elementary school in a bit. You just get moved on in.”
Dyan walked in, tracing her hands against the freezing bumpy walls. “Oh, why should I even unpack? I’m just going to have to move out again at some point. Everywhere’s always temporary.”
“Oh, you really will be a tough one won’t you? Miss Moleti did say you had run away from her and lied to others about it,” Madalia kept her smile centered on her face, though her words felt something other than cheery.
Find out what happens next in the next part!
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