Free Penelope Crumb by Shawn K. Stout Page B

can get there, he hands me a map and points to the bus stop in front of the library. “Next bus should be here in about three minutes.”
    I turn to Littie, who is still on the phone, holding her nose and saying, “I’m sure Penelope will be feeling much more chipper tomorrow, thank you ever so kindly.” Which is something my mom would never ever say.
    I pull at Littie’s arm. “Come on, we have to go.”
    Littie hangs up quick, and I pull at her arm until we’re both running out the front door toward the bus stop.
    “Where are we going?” asks Littie as we climb into the bus.
    I wave the piece of paper with Grandpa MortimerFelix’s phone number and address at her. “Grandpa Felix’s house. Where else?”
    I find two seats together at the back of the bus and slide into the one by the window. Littie stands in the aisle. “How do you know for sure that man on the phone was your grandpa?” she says. “He hung up on you.”
    “So? Aren’t you going to sit down?”
    She shakes her head at me. “So, that doesn’t seem like a very grandpa thing to do.”
    Even Littie’s worst thinking can’t bother me now. “He probably just doesn’t like to talk on the phone. There are people out there in the world like that, you know.”
    Littie says, “Humph,” and then nothing else.
    “The bus driver is staring at you like she wants you to sit down.”
    Littie finally takes off her backpack and slides into the seat beside me. She looks straight ahead and says, “I’m just saying.”
    “What are you saying exactly, Littie Maple?”
    “I’m saying that maybe that man on the phone isn’t your grandpa. And even if he is your grandpa, maybe now isn’t the best time for a visit.” She shifts her backpack on her lap. “He sounds kind of mean.”
    “I thought you wanted an adventure,” I say. “You’re always saying how you want an adventure and how your momma never lets you do anything. And here’s your chance, Littie Maple. A real adventure is right under your nose!” While Littie thinks this over, I say the one thing that I know will change her mind: “Unless you
want
to turn into your momma.”

16.
    W e take the bus across Portwaller to 609 Antietam Street. Grandpa Felix’s apartment building looks as old as he must be. The window shutters hang all cockeyed and the gray paint is peeling off the bricks in clumps like whiskers. Long ivy vines cling to the sides and front, climbing up, up, up to the rooftop where I imagine they meet and have tea parties with the moon.
    “This is it,” I say.
    “How do we know which one is his?” asks Littie. “The address we have didn’t list an apartment number.”
    I shrug and point to a man walking toward the front door. “Let’s ask.”
    I catch the door before it latches shut and swing it back open again, almost knocking off a wreath of plastic yellow flowers. “Excuse me,” I say to the man. “Do you know where Mr. Mortimer Felix Crumb lives?”
    The man sticks a key into a mailbox in the wall, peers inside, and then closes the door. He slips the key into his shirt pocket and pats it twice. “You family?” He looks right at me when he says this, wiping his nose with his wrist.
    “Yes sir,” I say.
    “He’s her long-lost grandpa,” Littie adds.
    “Up the stairs. Apartment Three-C.”
    Littie thanks him and yanks on my arm in the direction of the stairs. But I plant my feet, wondering about his big nose that doesn’t stop growing. “There isn’t anything, you know, especially strange about him, is there?”
    The man’s eyes get big and then he gives me alook that says, If You Don’t Know, I’m Not Going to Tell You. I go cold all over and Littie has to give my arm another big yank to get me moving.
    The door marked 3C is in front of me before I know it. This time Littie does the knocking before I’m even ready. “Wait, Littie!” I turn my back to the door because I haven’t thought of the words that I want to say. But I hear the door open