Free The Cardturner by Louis Sachar Page B

serious (adverb deleted), and that it was important to me (adverb deleted), he agreed to play (adverb deleted).
    "But afternoon only," he said. "Katie and I have plans for tomorrow night."
    He normally wouldn't have mentioned Katie. He would have said something like "I'm busy tomorrow night." I think he just wanted to twist the knife a bit, since he'd agreed to do me a favor.
    As I expected, Leslie was thrilled to finally get to play bridge. She wasn't too thrilled, however, that Cliff would be our fourth.
    "He's a big goof-off," she said. "He won't concentrate on the game. He'll just make stupid jokes."
    Leslie was a lot like her uncle Lester. She took her bridge very seriously.
    "Besides . . . ," Leslie said.
    "What?"
    She didn't say, but I knew what she was thinking. She blamed Cliff for what had happened between Katie and me.
    Like a football coach getting his team ready for the second half, once again I had to pump myself up to call Toni. You would think it would have been easier for me the second time, but you would be wrong.
    She answered the phone this time.
    "We're on," I said. "You, me, Cliff, and Leslie."
    I told her two o'clock, and she said she was looking forward to it.
    "So why did you call me?" I asked, regretting the question as soon as it came out of my mouth.
    "What do you mean?"
    What I meant was this: we hadn't exactly been friendly at the bridge studio. She mostly ignored me, and my attitude toward her can best be described as surly. But I didn't say that to Toni.
    "Never mind," I said. "I mean, I was just . . . surprised you called."
    "My grandmother told me to," said Toni.
    "Oh. Okay," I said. "Well, see you tomorrow. You'll really like Cliff."

28
Toni's Grandmother and President Nixon
    I had felt so awkward asking Toni that question that I readily accepted the answer she gave, and really didn't think about what she said until after I hung up. Her answer was even stranger than my question.
    Everybody has two grandmothers, I realized; in fact, Toni had three, if you count the woman Henry King married later on. I had no reason to assume Toni was talking about Trapp's "perfect partner," his ex-wife's insane sister. I had also assumed that person had died.
    If she was still alive, and living with Toni's family, it would explain why Trapp went there for dinner. But why didn't he play bridge with her anymore? Did she even remember how to play, or was her mind too far gone?
    But that wasn't what made Toni's answer so strange. Why would Toni's grandmother (whichever one it was) tell her to call me? I had never met any of them, except perhaps at Trapp's birthday party eleven years ago. To use an expression my own grandmother used to say, they didn't know me from Adam.
    Besides, since when does a teenage girl call up a boy at the suggestion of her grandmother?
    I wandered back out into the kitchen.
    "Well?" asked my mother.
    "Well, what?"
    "Well, Toni?"
    When I told my mother about our upcoming bridge party, you would have thought from her reaction that she must not have heard me clearly. She must have thought I had said the Queen of England was coming for tea.
    She immediately started cleaning everything in sight as she worried about what she would serve.
    "Potato chips?" I suggested.
    "Don't be ridiculous," she replied, then ordered me to vacuum the living room.
    My father came home in a bad mood. He had spent half the day filling out forms at the unemployment office, and hardly said a word during dinner. Not that I'm such a sparkling conversationalist either. Usually the most they can pry out of me are a few "Uh-huhs" and "Pass the applesauce."
    "It's bad enough losing a job," he said finally. "Then some condescending government worker treats you like you're some kind of welfare cheat. It's my money!"
    "Pass the applesauce," I said.
    "I've paid unemployment insurance for seventeen years," my father continued. "All I want is what's rightfully mine. Those government clerks never worked at a real job in their