Tethered to Other Stars by Elisa Stone Leahy EPUB & PDF

Tethered to Other Stars by Elisa Stone Leahy EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online

• Status: Available for Free Download
• Author: Elisa Stone Leahy
• Language: English
• Genre: Teen & Young Adult Fiction about Siblings
• Format: PDF / EPUB
• Size: 2 MB
• Price: Free

Wendy and Tom sat on the plastic-wrapped sofa in the middle of the
sidewalk and stared up at the crooked house.
“Papá knows houses.” Tom’s voice was confident, as usual. “He would
know if it wasn’t okay.”
“You think it’s supposed to sag in like that?” Wendy’s voice was
skeptical, as usual.

She eyed the dip in the roof, the angled redbrick walls, pockmarked
where the mortar had chipped away. “The whole thing is practically curling
up to die. I’m so sure that’s a design choice.”
On the rickety front porch, their dad was attempting to peel the city
notices from the filthy door. Their mom stood back warily, a box of
cleaning supplies clutched tightly in her arms, watching as the paper came
off in thin, reluctant strips.

“Papá better be gentle with that,” Wendy muttered. “This place looks
like it’s held up by thoughts and prayers.”
Tom snorted. “Nah, it’s just old,” he said. “Remember what Papá said?
Like a hundred and fifty years old. He checked out the foundation and all
that stuff, though. And he said they just redid the roof last year.”
Wendy squinted at the house. In some places the walls seemed to bend,
like objects did when you looked at them through a concave lens. But
refraction, while valuable in a telescope, was 100 percent not something
you wanted in the walls where you lived.

“Yeah, he told us how old it was, like, five times,” she said. “I just
didn’t think it would have actual wrinkles.”
Tom let out a laugh and Wendy’s mouth tipped into an almost smile. It
had been a long time since she’d heard her older brother laugh. Too long.
Papá scraped off the last paper notice and dug a key from his pocket. He
turned to wave it at them, looking pleased, and Wendy felt a sudden pang of
homesickness.

The strips of white-and-red paper hanging limply from his hand
reminded her of the intricate tissue paper banners that Mamá and the other
women had hung from the streetlamps last July fourth. Wendy remembered
sitting outside their apartment building, the steamy pavement warming her
flip-flops as her best friend, Alicia, braided her hair and Don Leo scowled
at them from across the street.

“My dad is ‘señor.’ Your dad is ‘señor.’ So why does grumpy Leo get to
be a Don?” Alicia had whispered as she finished weaving the red ribbon
into Wendy’s braid. “Remember when your brother made his girlfriend
watch that movie and we spied on them? The Godfather? It was all Don this
and Don that, and he was a mob boss!” She widened her eyes dramatically.

“Just saying.”
Wendy had snorted with laughter and pulled her friend out of sight of
the supposed mob boss. They’d giggled behind the Dumpster, hiding from
Don Leo while the mouthwatering scent of tamales and Peruvian anticuchos
flavored the bright summer night. Tom sat on the front stoop with his
girlfriend, Gina, strumming his guitar. More neighbors found their way out
to the street, unfolding their chairs under the fluttering paper banners. One
of them joined in with the music from Tom’s guitar, banging out a rhythm

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