Lonely House, Cozy Home

In Lonely House, Cozy Home a young girl wanders through an afternoon waiting for her mother to come home from work. She uses her vivid imagination to distract herself from the scary loneliness of her empty house. 

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Excerpts

  The bus pulled away, leaving Boo alone on the dusty road leading to her house.

The loud, long ride home from school had been full of teasing and paper balls flying through the air. Now Boo felt like she was in the quietest place in the earth. 

She worked her fingers slowly through the gravel. She picked up jagged, dusty rocks, then tossed them aside. It took a long while until she found a smooth silvery one, different from all the rest.

"You found me!" she could almost hear it say. "I'll call you Rosie," she told her new rock friend. 

She flicked on the TV in the den 

... coral reef is teeming with life: from tiny sea slugs to giant clams. Coral comes in a variety of shapes: some look like antlers, others even look like wrinkled brains. Dive in and you’ll find yourself surrounded by....

The sounds of the show trailed after her as she walked out the back door of the house, leaving it open behind her. 

Boo stared and stared at herself. Her face looked rippled and unfamiliar. She couldn't see her freckles, and she liked it better that way.

She pictured herself looking like that in real life, strutting into her classroom in the morning, free of the shyness that clung to her like a shadow.