Read Online Home to Sparrow Lake (Harlequin Heartwarming) by Lynn Patrick - Free Book Online Page B

much smaller friend and didn’t seem to have a brain of his own.
    Then again, Brian knew he was acting like he didn’t have a brain, either. He didn’t care, though. He had no one to impress but these jugheads. Mom wasn’t here and his sisters and aunt didn’t seem to see him for who he was. Well, maybe Kristen, at least a little. When she had asked him to take charge of phoned-in orders at the store, he’d felt as if someone needed him.
    Too bad it was too little, too late.
    The big old corner house came into sight. Brian stopped and held his hand up so the others would stop, too.
    “Make sure no one’s watching first.”
    “Who’s gonna be watching at one in the morning?” Andy asked.
    Matt added. “Don’t see no one.”
    Neither did Brian.
    “Okay,” he whispered, moving forward. “Let’s do it, but quietly!”
    They crossed the street and went straight to the middle of the yard alongside the house where a family of metal deer stood guard. The deer were fairly heavy. Andy grunted as he tried to budge one.
    “Matt and I can move these,” Brian said. “Why don’t you go get those rabbits out of the garden?”
    He and Matt combined forces to lift the big buck and carry it around to the other side of the house. They went back to get the doe, carrying her together, as well, and then returned to each pick up one of the much smaller fawns.
    When Brian noticed Andy standing in the middle of the garden, his back to them, not moving anything, he hesitated. “Andy,” he whispered, “you okay?”
    Andy nodded but didn’t say anything.
    With the weirdest feeling crawling down his spine, Brian left the fawn and walked over to see what was going on with his scrawny friend who had gone past the flower bed and into the vegetable garden. Coming around to one side, Brian saw that Andy was stuffing something in his mouth. Then Andy bent over and twisted a tomato off the plant in front of him.
    He was eating? Now?
    “Andy, what are you doing?” he whispered frantically. “The longer we stay here, the more likely we’ll get caught!”
    “Okay, okay!”
    But Andy didn’t move out of the vegetable patch. He stuffed the tomato in a pocket and grabbed another and a couple of green peppers, as well. He shoved one in his pocket, the other in his mouth. Brian wondered how he could do that without washing the vegetable first. Yuck!
    Andy picked up a rabbit statue and carried it to the flat, open part of the lawn. In the meantime, having moved the remaining fawns, Matt hurried over and started moving the smaller animals, letting Andy tell him where to place them. They arranged the sculptures in circles beginning with rabbits on an inside ring, moving to frogs, then squirrels. They also placed a few geese on the outside, their heads looking at the center.
    Andy chortled. “Hey, this is like a crop circle. They’ll think aliens were here.”
    Brian had to grin. Andy must have seen one of those TV specials about mysterious events. He found a big, dumb-looking garden gnome and placed it in the center of the circle. “And this is their leader.”
    Brian didn’t miss the fact that Andy finished the pepper, went back to the vegetable garden and pulled a zucchini from the vine and started chomping on that.
    What was wrong with him? How could Andy eat so much so late at night? How could he eat so much and stay so skinny? And why was he so into vegetables when most guys would rather have a juicy burger?
    It was then it hit Brian. Andy was hungry. Not normally hungry, but ravenous, as if he hadn’t eaten for days. Was that why Andy’s clothes were falling off him? Because he didn’t have enough to eat? He’d never said anything about being hungry before. He had parents. At least Brian thought he did.
    Realizing they were done moving the lawn ornaments around, he whispered, “Good job! Let’s get out of here.”
    He’d have to find out what was going on with Andy. Aunt Margaret’s refrigerator was always full....
    They were