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    Disappearing Footprints
    Disappearing Footprints
    Disappearing Footprints
    Ebook71 pages1 hour

    Disappearing Footprints

    By Barbara Gipson

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    About this ebook

    One moment eleven-year old Shirley Brown is playing a game of Disappearing Footprints in Los Angeles, California with her best friend Phyllis Johnson. Suddenly, she finds herself underground in a sunken room gasping for air. “STAND UP,” someone shouts into her ear. She closes her eyes and ignores them. “I can’t. I need to rest.”

    “STAND UP NOW!” they yell again. This time, she dared not ignore them. She stands up pressing her head against the ceiling of the small room. It gives way and a rush of air comes flooding into her lungs.

    Gasping, Shirley jerks awake, sweating, as a flash of lightning followed by a clap of thunder roars overhead. A puzzled expression crosses her face as she realizes that she’s standing next to the bed in the sparsely furnished powder blue bedroom in Copper Springs, Oklahoma where she has been living for the last six months.

    It was just a dream. A dream that she’d been having all week. Tonight–she didn’t want to think about tonight. “It’s only a dream.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBarbara Gipson
    Release dateAug 6, 2015
    ISBN9781310330216
    Disappearing Footprints
    Author

    Barbara Gipson

    Barbara Gipson lives in Long Beach, California with her son and her sister. Disappearing Footprints is the first book in the Shirley Brown mystery collection of five books for Middle Grade Readers. The Secret of Copper Springs (Read Chapter One on the next page) is the next book in the collection and forms a series with Hidden in Plain Sight and The Lost Quilt (or the Last Station). The Secret Maze will end the collection. Barbara is also working on a picture for first readers entitled Hey! That’s Me.

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      Book preview

      Disappearing Footprints - Barbara Gipson

      Disappearing Footprints

      A Shirley Brown Mystery Novel

      By Barbara Gipson

      Copyright Barbara Gipson 2015

      Published by Barbara Gipson at Smashwords

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Dedication

      I’d like to dedicate this book to Melvertie Gipson, my mother, and my aunts Leaner Quillen and Mae Humphrey,.

      Chapter One-THE GAME

      It was a cool, Saturday morning when Shirley Brown stepped outside her front door. She yawned rubbing sleep from her eyes and then stretched her arms way up over her head. Still yawning, she brought her arms to rest behind her head and stood quietly at the top of the open green porch to let the sleep ease away from her body. After several minutes, Shirley smiled and looked at the pink stucco house next door. She expected to see Phyllis Johnson, her best friend standing at the side edge of the front porch, but that space was empty. Ha ha, she chuckled. That was just like Phyllis, to get her up at the break of dawn on a no school morning and then sleep in herself. Well it served her right, Shirley thought. She was the one who’d wanted to play this game. Maybe Phyllis was right. Maybe they had outgrown it.

      No! Shirley said to herself stubbornly. They were still kids. She couldn’t understand why Phyllis was in such a rush to grown up. She even wanted to copy some of the makeup tips Mona had given her. Mona, she thought and shuddered. No, they were still just kids. Besides, they hadn’t played the game in so long. Shirley daydreamed for a moment and processed the changes taking place before her eyes. As Phyllis moved more and more towards makeup and boys, she wanted to hold onto everything they had done in the past. The game was her way of keeping things as they used to be when it was them against the world. "Phyllis is the only one around here who has accepted my difference and allowed me to be who I am--as I am? Even I don’t know who that is. But, it’s important to keep things as they are, she muttered shaking away the lonely feelings that were growing inside her. That’s why yesterday, on bended knees, she had begged Phyllis to play the game with her one more time, but, to her surprise, Phyllis refused. She was afraid that the others might see them and ridicule them. It was then that Shirley realized she was losing her best friend. No, not yet. In frustration, she’d fallen on the grass and resorted to a bout of crying while hiding her face so Phyllis couldn’t see that she was faking. Finally, the emotion moved Phyllis and she had agreed to play provided they played early in the morning when no one would be out to see them. For Phyllis, early was before the sun rose.

      Shirley walked towards the edge of the porch and leaned against the smooth surface of the white wooden pillar closest to Phyllis’ porch. She’d give her a few more minutes, and then, she was going to get her. No matter what, the game was going to be played today. Shirley closed her eyes as a gentle spring breeze brushed across her cheeks.

      Umm, she moaned softly and sniffed enjoying the smell of the early morning dew. She listened as birds chirped out their morning songs and watched as the sun gently lit the morning sky. She stayed that way for a little while and then walked around to the other side of the pillar. It was time to wake Phyllis up. As she took the first step down, a smile crept across her face. Down on the pathway, at the edge of the bottom step, she saw them--footprints. Oh, you’ve already started. Ha ha ha.

      Excited, Shirley jumped the rest of the way down over the steps and landed in the first set of footprints perfectly. She followed them down the front walk. At the sidewalk, they turned right and went towards her driveway. So did she.

      The footprints turned right again and went up Shirley’s driveway. However, midway up the driveway, they abruptly stopped. Shirley looked around her. No way, she thought. There was no place for Phyllis to hide. The game couldn’t be over this quickly. Yet, how? How did the prints end here? She was missing something. Shirley bent down and studied the footprints more carefully. On the third footprint back, she saw it. A slight overstep.

      "Ohhh, you’re getting good Phyllis. You walked backwards," Shirley muttered to herself.

      She retraced the steps back down the driveway, exactly as Phyllis had done it, and found

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