The Bookworm Next Door: The Expanded and Revised Edition
Read The Bookworm Next Door: The Expanded and Revised Edition Online
Authors: Alicia J. Chumney
The Bookworm Next Door
Alicia J. Chumney
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design: Alicia J. Chumney
Editors: Alicia Chumney, Laura Vance, Chastity Wofford
1. Young Adult 2. Young Adult Romance
First Edition
Kindle Edition
To my friends and Beta Readers
Without you there would be no book.
Author’s Note:
The Bookworm Next Door
was previously released as a short novel with five short stories. In combining the stories into an omnibus edition I realized there was more to the story that needed to be included.
This is the entire high school story.
Age Eight
Shaking her head furiously, Delilah Davis slowly backed away from the Carver boy. David was holding tightly onto some freshly dug up worms that were going to be used for the fishing trip he would be taking shortly with his father. The threat of dirty, squiggling worms ending up in her hair seemed very, very real.
"Get away from me with those!" she screeched loudly, trying to figure out where she could run and hide. Was any place safe from muddy neighbor boys?
"No!" David toothlessly grinned as the grubby, slimy worms wiggling helplessly in his fists. "Come here. I want a hug!"
Delilah screamed as she took off running, "No! Boys have cooties!"
The eight-year-old next-door neighbors took off running around their yards, David always maintaining a five foot distance away from Delilah. He wasn’t actually, physically going to do anything with the worms; that would mean having to collect new ones and possibly not being allowed to go on the treasured fishing trip with his father in ten minutes. It was just too much fun to chase after Delilah. She was squeamish about everything.
"David William Carver!" his mother yelled out just as Delilah started to cry. "Get over here with those worms."
Delilah ran to safety behind Mrs. Carver, still crying while clutching at her library book. "He was going to put those worms in my hair!"
"Yes, dear, he was going to do something with those worms. David was going to go fishing with his father and brothers. David, put the worms away. Your father has a last minute meeting that he has to go to today." Mrs. Carver hated having to be the person to break the bad news to her youngest son. Turning towards the little girl trembling behind her, she wiped away a tear, intentionally missing the disappointed look on her youngest son's face.
Age 12
David leaned against the tree that stood in the middle of the Davis and Carver property line. Above him was the joint tree house project that the eldest Davis girl, Samantha, and his eldest brother, John, had begged their fathers to let them build. They did an amazingly good job for nine year olds, granted Mr. Davis had helped them build most of it.
His dad never was around long enough to help out even if he provided most of the lumber and other supplies for their project. He had brought them glass panes for the windows on the day he had missed helping with the walls because of a client dinner.
Looking up, he was tempted to climb up and hide out where nobody would think to find him. The deciding factor was when he heard a door slam shut and he hurried up the wooden ladder. He did not want anybody to see him crying; there was nothing less manly than sobbing over a father he only saw on occasion.
"David?" Delilah called out. She could have sworn she saw him only a minute before when she was looking out her bedroom window. "David, where are you?" Giving up she went to search his backyard for her friend.
He was not ready to see her and talk about this, even if she was his best friend although she was a girl and a bookworm.
She still had her father.
A fresh wave of tears flooded over him as he remembered his mother's words. “Heart attack” and “death” were hard concepts to grasp for a middle school student; at least they were for David. Nothing even close to this had ever happened to him before and it left him uncertain about how to react. His brother John was doing things around the house that their mother needed done. Peter had punched through the wall in his bedroom and was currently working on patching it up. Neither brother was certain about what to say to their youngest sibling and left him to his self.
"I thought I saw you back here," Delilah softly whispered when she climbed the ladder into the tree house. Without another word, she hugged his back, laying her head down on his shoulder. Being there was the best thing she could have done for him.
It’s a truth, universally acknowledged, that a girl with a reading habit must be in want of a book. It didn’t matter what the book was;
Nancy Drew
,
The Babysitter’s Club,
and Sarah Dessen’s books could almost always be found at the local library. A book was a book and her mother’s recommendations carried weight.
It had always been that way for Delilah Davis ever since she sat at her mother’s feet listening to the soothing tones of Veronica Davis’ favorite book being read aloud.
Samantha Elizabeth “Lizzie” would be stretched out on the nearby bay window seat in the room claimed for a library. She might have been staring outside, but her thoughts were with the yearly read story. It was better than pondering what her first year at college was going to be like.
Charlotte Francine would be lying across the overstuffed chair across from their mother’s favorite spot. Nobody really knew what was going on in her mind, but Veronica had her suspicions. Charlotte had been extremely quiet and secretive lately. It was entirely possible that her middle daughter was aware of what was happening between her parents.
Delilah Jane, the youngest of the sisters, leaned against her mother’s chair and absorbed the words that filled the room. She longed for a romance like that, even though she suspected that she’d end up with the boy next door. That’s one of the major clichés in the young adult books she read.
Putting down the book for a moment, Veronica looked at her children. Samantha would be okay. She always managed to bounce back. It was Delilah whom she was worried about. Delilah would be a mess when she finally left.
Maybe she should tell them after all, even though Walter had demanded she not tell them why she was leaving. Would he ever tell their children that she had left them because she had found somebody else?
Did her own husband even realize just how much her discontent had grown? Would he care or would he toss out those dreaded words again? Marriage Counseling. As if another round with that judgmental therapist would do them any good. People had affairs; that didn’t mean it was her fault that her marriage was falling apart. That was what Veronica Davis kept telling herself.
No. She would finish
Pride and Prejudice
, have one last chat with her girls, and then disappear with Reginald Blackburn after they had fallen asleep.