Free Andi Unexpected by Amanda Flower

Andora; there’s nothing about Andora Boggs.”
    “I know.” I tilted one of the five fans that we’d placed throughout the attic so it hit me directly in the face. Outside, it was a beautiful day; it was way too nice to spend all of it inside counting wire hangers.
    “We need something more …” his voice trailed off. Taking his asthma inhaler from his pocket, he took two puffs absent-mindedly.
    “What we need to do is get out of here for a while.” I thumped him on the back. “You’re probably suffering from dust poisoning or something.”
    Colin looked up at me, his eyes buggy behind those gigantic goggles. “As far as I know, dust can’t poison you. It just affects your allergies, which are really just overactive enzymes trying to protect your body …”
    I groaned and helped him stand up. “Let’s go.”
    Downstairs, Colin removed his goggles, surgical mask, and hooded sweatshirt. Now he looked like any other normal kid standing in Amelie’s kitchen in jeans and a T-shirt. I laced up my sneakers.
    “Where are we going?” Colin asked.
    “I want to go back to the museum and talk to Mr. Finnigan. Maybe he can tell us something more.”
    Outside I rolled my bike out of the garage, which was now packed with furniture and boxes from the attic. How had all of that stuff fit up there? As I stepped out, I heard my sister’s voice coming from the front of the house and froze. “I can paint and draw right here. I don’t need classes,” she said.
    The next voice belonged to Bergita. “The classes will help you become a better artist. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
    “I want to go back home. I miss my life,” Bethany said quietly.
    “And your parents, I’m sure.”
    There was silence, and then Bethany said, “I miss them more than Andi does.”
    My stomach clenched.
    “Why do you think that?” Bergita asked.
    “Because all she thinks about now is this stupid Andora thing. Who cares about a baby girl who lived a long time ago? I mean, our parents are
dead
.” There were tears in her voice. “It’s not fair that I miss them more when they obviously loved her more. She was their protégé, the future scientist. All I can do is draw.”
    “Bethany, everyone grieves differently. When my husband died, I was brokenhearted. But the day after his funeral, I started packing up his clothes so I could donate them to charity. A friend of mine was offended by that. She’d kept her husband’s things for years after he died. She thought I was terrible for discarding my husband’s stuff so soon. She thought keeping her husband’s things proved that she loved her husband more than I loved mine.”
    I stepped closer to the edge of the garage, but I didn’t dare poke my head around the corner.
    Bergita continued, “I don’t believe your parents loved Andi more. They loved her differently—just like I grieved the loss of my husband differently than my friend did.”
    Bethany mumbled something I couldn’t hear.
    Bergita chuckled. “There is a class tomorrow afternoon. Come with me just one time. If you hate it, you never have to go back.”
    “I guess I have nothing better to do,” my sister muttered.
    The two of them moved away from the garage, and I ran down the driveway with my bike to meet Colin.
    “Where have you been?” he asked.
    “In the garage,” I said, leaving it at that. “Let’s go.”
    A sign on the bottling company’s door said the museum was closed on Saturday afternoons. I parked my bike. “Well, it can’t hurt to knock,” I said, banging on the door.
    Colin and I waited a couple of minutes, and then I knocked again—but a tad softer this time.
    “Maybe we should come back Monday,” Colin suggested.
    Just then, Mr. Finnigan opened the door. His face lit up as he said, “You came back!”
    “I know the museum is closed,” I said, “but we wondered if we could talk to you about something important.”
    “Is this about your mysterious Andora?” he asked.
    I