Free Horten's Incredible Illusions by Lissa Evans Page A

new school in a couple of weeks’ time. Kids can be cruel, especially kids you haven’t grown up with, and if you’ve got a name like S. Horten, then you’re going to get a nickname real quick. Am I right?”
    Stuart said nothing, but he could feel his face grow hot. He thought of all the times in his life he’d been called Shorty Shorten. The phone was sticky in his grasp. Miss Edie’s voice continued, crackly and compelling.
    “Money sure can’t buy you height, but it can buy you power. The best bike in town, the best computer, the best sneakers, the best parties, the best vacations—you ever been to Disneyland?”
    “No,” muttered Stuart, his voice hoarse.
    “You could take the whole class. Wouldn’t matter how tall you are then, they’d really respect you. Take the whole class, except anyone who’s mean to you. Buy a Rolls-Royce and a chauffeur to drive you to school, and only give rides to the kids you like. Buy a house with a swimming pool in the backyard, and see how nice everyone is to you then. Friendship’s like any other commodity, Stuart. You can buy it if you have enough money …”
    Stuart’s chest was thudding as if someone inside it were banging a drum.
    “You still there?” asked Miss Edie.
    “Yes.”
    “You have a real think about what I said. Find that will, and I can make your dreams come true. They won’t call you the shortest kid in class any more; they’ll call you the richest …”
    “But—”
    Before Stuart could say any more, the line went dead.

 

    CHAPTER 16
    He stood staring at the silent receiver, and then something tugged insistently at the back of his mind, and he fetched the tin money box in which he kept his most treasured possessions, and took out Great-Uncle Tony’s note.
use the star to find the letters, and when you have all six, they’ll lead you to my w
    “Lead you to my will,” said Stuart quietly.
    So that was it, then—the letters were clues that would lead him to his great-uncle’s will, and when he found it, he would have a choice.
    For a strange moment he felt as if he were standing on a bridge over a dark, rushing river. On one side of the bridge was a feast of magic: Great-Uncle Tony’s illusions and the bizarre adventures that Stuart and April were finding within them. On the other side was a fabulous world of money, glittering with all the things that Stuart could buy, if only he were rich. He stood poised in the center of the bridge, like an iron filing between two magnets.
    Then his father called him from downstairs and he found himself back in the real world, ravenously hungry, and a bit ashamed of himself.
    “Sorry, Dad,” he mumbled, coming into the kitchen. “Sorry I was rude to you.”
    “Expiation delightedly accepted. I surmise that you were sorely in need of sustenance and therefore I have prepared a porcine-based comestible.”
    He waved a hand toward the table, and Stuart looked at the large, delicious-looking sandwich, stuffed with bacon and oozing tomato ketchup. And then he looked at all the other things that his father had spent the entire afternoon cooking.
    “Can I have some soup as well?” he asked. “And maybe a small slice of the vegetable flan and a bit of salad. Just a small bit?”
    After five minutes of steady chomping, Stuart felt much fuller and much, much healthier.
    “Thanks, Dad.”
    His father was looking thoughtful. “Do you think it might aid mutual colloquy if I endeavored to converse in a less polysyllabic manner?” he asked.
    “What does mutual colloquy mean?”
    “Our conversation.”
    “And endeavor means try , doesn’t it?”
    “Indubitably.”
    “So what you’re saying is, Would it be easier for us to talk if you used shorter words? “
    “Yes.”
    Stuart nodded cautiously. “Well, it might speed things up a bit. What do you want to talk about?”
    “I confess to a mild sense of curiosity about your recently completed telephonic communi—” His father paused and swallowed. “Your