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    Not For Sale
    Not For Sale
    Not For Sale
    Ebook67 pages22 minutes

    Not For Sale

    By Sara Cassidy and Helen Flook

    ()

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    About this ebook

    When ten-year-old Cyrus sees a For Sale sign plunged into his front lawn, it’s a complete and utter disaster.

    Usually, his younger brother, Rudy, is the scaredy-cat, but for the first time in his life, Cyrus is terrified. He’s lived at 637 Petunia Boulevard since he came to live with his adoptive mom and dad at two months old. Won’t he go hurtling into outer space without these four familiar walls to hold him in? Luckily, Cyrus has a few sneaky tricks up his sleeve to stop this moving business before it even gets started.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateMay 1, 2015
    ISBN9781459807211
    Not For Sale
    Author

    Sara Cassidy

    Sara Cassidy is a writer and editor. She is the author of 17 children’s books including Genius Jolene, winner of the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize, and Nevers, which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Her books have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Silver Birch Express Award, the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award, the Rocky Mountain Book Award and the Chocolate Lily Award. Sara also writes nonfiction and poetry for adults and works in communications for the BC Ministry of Health. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

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      Book preview

      Not For Sale - Sara Cassidy

      ]>

      Table of Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      ]>

      wb_9781459807204_0005_002.jpg

      Chapter One

      Ancient potatoes lurk in our bedroom closets. Under beds with dust bunnies. In the toes of rubber boots no one has worn since spring. When Mom finds one of the withered gray tubers, she waves it in our faces.

      Do your homework, Rudy! she says. "Cyrus, clean your room! Or I’ll touch you with this putrid thing. I’ll cook it in your soup without you knowing!"

      A slimy tornado of fear whirls in my throat at the thought of wrinkly-potato soup. I try not to gag.

      I expect the potato to clink and clack when Mom shakes it in my face, but of course it doesn’t. It’s not a baby’s rattle, it’s a potato. A potato that looks like it’s had a fight with a hole punch. The shriveled spud is the leftover ammo from a potato-gun battle between my brother Rudy and me. Rudy’s eight, and I’m nine.

      A potato gun looks like a water pistol, but instead of water, you fill it with potato. First, you find a big potato in the stinky kitchen drawer. Then you shove the gun’s short barrel in past the peel to load it with potato flesh. A potato pellet is shaped like a pencil eraser, only it’s crunchy and white, not rubbery and pink.

      It doesn’t exactly hurt when you get shot with a potato pellet, but it can sting. Sometimes, if Mom’s out of potatoes, Rudy and I battle with apples. Once, when Mom was at work, we tried a banana. It was disgusting. Banana pellets don’t sting—they just mush and dribble.

      Eventually, Rudy and I tire of shooting each other with bits of spud. We get distracted by the TV or LEGO. Or by Wigglechin, our cat, who is old and often clinging to

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