Free Flash by Ellen Miles

CHAPTER ONE
    “Ohhh, I’m so full!” Charles patted his belly. “I can’t eat any more.”
    “Really?” Aunt Abigail asked. “So, you won’t be having any chocolate cream pie?”
    “Well …” Charles said, “maybe just a tiny piece.” He looked down at the little tan puppy lying near his feet. Charles did want dessert, but he also really wanted to play with Buddy, who had been waiting so patiently through Thanksgiving dinner.
    “Uh-huh,” said Mom. “And a piece of apple pie, too, probably, and some berry crumble.”
    “Yup,” said Charles. “I still have my dessert stomach!” That was what the Petersons called it when you were too full for real food but still hadroom for dessert. Charles never said no to dessert, no matter how full he was. And Aunt Abigail’s desserts were the best. She was once the pastry chef for a fancy hotel in New York City, so she really knew what she was doing.
    Now she and Uncle Stephen lived out in the country. Six months ago, they had given up their busy city lives to move to this old farm at the end of a long country road. Now they had busy
country
lives. Aunt Abigail was working in the old-fashioned farmhouse kitchen baking cakes and pies that she sold at the town’s general store, and Uncle Stephen worked on a computer upstairs doing the same business stuff (Charles wasn’t sure exactly what it was) he had done in the city. “Only with a better view,” Uncle Stephen always said.
    The Petersons had visited the farm before, but this was their first Thanksgiving there. Mom and Dad and Lizzie, Charles’s older sister, and the Bean, his younger brother, had all piled into their van (Dad’s red pickup didn’t have enough roomfor all of them) along with Buddy, their puppy. They had driven for what felt like a whole day, stopping every hour to let Buddy out for a little play-and-pee time.
    The drive was boring — how many hours can you stand to play license-plate bingo? — but Charles thought it was worth it to see his cousins. Or at least it was worth it to see Becky, the one who was the same age as Charles. They were both in second grade. Becky was cool. And really brave. She would climb the highest tree in the yard, swim in the coldest stream, ride her bike down the steepest hill. Becky loved mysteries and playing detective. She loved her new home in the country.
    On the other hand, Stephanie, her older sister, was kind of a pain. She was in fifth grade, and she thought she knew everything. (Just like Lizzie, Charles thought. Maybe older sisters were all alike.) And she hated living on the farm. Steph never stopped talking about how boringthe country was and how much she missed high-speed Internet, fun stores, and good Chinese restaurants.
    If anything was boring, thought Charles, it was having to hear about how great New York City was. How Macy’s was the biggest department store and the Knicks were the best basketball team, blah, blah, blah.
    Lizzie didn’t seem to mind Stephanie. Charles thought that was probably because she and Stephanie were like two bossy, know-it-all peas in a pod. Plus, they both loved horses, and they could go on and on forever about riding and saddles and grooming.
    On the drive over, Mom had said to be nice to Stephanie because she was “having a hard time with the move.” And it was true that Steph had been more fun back when the Petersons would visit their cousins in New York. She had even helped them get autographs from some of the Yankees when they all went to a baseball game together.
    Still, Charles would rather hang out with Becky. They had been having a blast playing with Buddy. Becky could not get over how lucky Charles was to have his own puppy.
    Charles couldn’t get over it, either. Sometimes it was still hard for him to believe that Buddy was theirs for keeps. The Petersons had fostered lots of puppies, giving them a safe home until they found the perfect “forever home” for each one. But no matter how much Lizzie,