My Diary from the Edge of the World by Jodi Lynn Anderson

crackers, and I could tell he hadn’t brushed his teeth even though it was his bedtime.
    â€œI cried my eyes out because I wanted a little sister to torment just like Millie torments me.” I took a breath, then went on, feeling Sam’s little heartbeat against my shoulder. “When Mom and Dad got home, I refused tohold you. But then Dad tricked me and slipped you into my arms, saying . . .”
    â€œCan you hold these potato chips!” Sam shouted.
    â€œShhh. Yeah, he said, ‘Can you hold these potato chips?’ and then put you in my arms. And when I looked at you . . . and you looked at me . . . I felt . . .”
    This is the part I can never describe quite right, and it’s the only part of the story that ever changes. I tried to remember that exact feeling of looking into Sam’s eyes, so new to the world.
    â€œI think I felt so happy that it made me scared, too. Like that I might drop you or lose you, and never recover.”
    Sam seemed satisfied. He squeezed me tight around my middle.
    â€œI’m amazing.” He sighed.
    â€œDon’t get a big head.”
    I didn’t even have to tell him to go to bed. Sam always behaves, almost too well. (Well, except he hates brushing his teeth.) He slithered out of my arms and slipped silently off my bed.
    I poked my head out to see him off, and watched him give everyone a kiss good night. He even walked on tiptoes (he loves walking on his toes) over to the pull-outcouch where Oliver was reading ( Little Women , of all things—he’s so peculiar) and laid a big sweet kiss on Oliver’s cheek. “Night, Oliver,” he said, and then disappeared. Oliver looked over at me from his book, and a rare smile climbed onto his face. “I never had siblings,” he said. Then his smile kind of melted and disappeared. Maybe he was thinking that he doesn’t have a mom and dad either now. I didn’t know what to say, so I pretended to get really interested in something on the ceiling, and then ducked back into my bunk.
    *  *  *
    We just passed a mall that looks like it’s been closed for years, with stores like Pottery Barn and Toys “R” Us all grown over with weeds. I’ve been sitting here writing, on and off, and playing with my Home Again suitcase: opening and closing it.
    Now I can hear Sam in Mom and Dad’s bed talking to Jim the bear. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but it’s clearly a very lively conversation in which Sam is convincing Jim that, actually, Grandma is not going to be awful at all. I suppose he’s just convincing himself. I wish I could convince myself too. Dad says that once we get to Smoky Mountain State Park, it’s just a short hike through the mountains to the Crow’s Nest. Ihave to say that part doesn’t sound so appealing either.
    I wonder about the Crow’s Nest. Is it really a nest? Does Grandma have a flock of crows that will peck our eyes out? Recently, in New Hampshire, a witch made a boulder fall on a couple who cut her off in the parking lot at Safeway. I’m not sure Grandma is that violent, but Mom and Dad never told us why they stopped speaking to her. Millie has always said it’s because she put a curse on Sam, and that’s why Sam is always sick and why he’s so small. She met her once when she was little, before the big rift, and she says she has pointy teeth and that she’s one of the most infamous witches in the Smokies, which are full of infamous witches.
    I guess now I have a habit of thinking of pleasant things before I try to go to sleep.

October 16th
    Eighty or so years ago , according to Dad, people tried to build highways across America, but the forest monsters—mostly sasquatches, ghosts, and wood demons—harassed and kidnapped the workers. The dream of the highways was soon abandoned, and that’s why, in order to get to Grandma’s, we