Excerpt: VIRTUALLY LONDON, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 3

 "So they tookcare of you until your relatives showed up?" Mr. Zephyr said. His voicewas so gentle, it made me want to cry. Doni nodded. She sniffled a little whenI reached up to her in the front passenger seat and took hold of her hand."How long was that?"

"About..."She frowned for a few seconds and the fingers on the hand I was holdingtwitched a little, so I guessed she was counting. "About sevenweeks."

Mr. Zephyr growledsomething that sounded Chinese. It was a good guess he was cussing, likeGranddad did sometimes. Doni's eyes got big. Then she giggled.

"Sorry aboutthat." He shook his head and gave us both a crooked grin. Then he pulledinto the driveway of our house, right behind the glossy black Lincoln thatbelonged to Mr. Carr.

The nice thing aboutMr. Carr was that he wasn't afraid to do manual labor or get his hands or evenhis clothes dirty. Of course, there wasn't any dust on the furniture or bookswe hauled home from Divine's, but the possibility of it counted. Mr. Carr cameoutside in his light gray, three-piece summertime lawyer suit, and helped haulthat furniture upstairs to Doni's room. 

Before that, he bowed to Doni and shook her hand andsaid he was very pleased to meet her. Gram had told him the whole story already,so he didn't ask any questions. Instead, he talked about Mr. Zephyr's upcomingresearch trip, and offered to help find someone to rent the big old Zephyrfarmhouse while they were away.