One Great The Gnome WRITTEN BY JEFF DINARDO WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JHON ORTIZ ONE ELM BOOKS Egremont Massachusetts
CHAPTER 1 This Isn’t Manhattan Sarah was having a dream and it was a good one She was walking arm in arm with her best friend Lily They were on East 48th Street and looking in the window of Habington’s Bookstore one of their favorite hangouts Lily loved books and reading as much as Sarah did The girls hung out in the store so often that Mr Habington hired them on weekends to help stock the new books Sarah not only had the fi rst pick of all the new titles but she was getting paid for it too Not bad for an eleven-year-old Then Sarah heard a noise It sounded off in the distance somewhere Bang bang OUCH She woke from her dream and yawned In those fi rst moments she was confused She looked around through her squinting eyes This wasn’t her bedroom in the apartment building where she lived 1
This room was different It was big bare and filled with boxes Then she heard that thumping noise again Bang bang bang OUCH That OUCH sounded like her father Sarah stumbled out of bed Dad are you okay she called I’m fine called her father from the floor below Just whacked my thumb with the hammer again You should get up now he added Breakfast is ready Sarah looked around Now she remembered She wasn’t in Manhattan anymore and this wasn’t her room Well it was her room her NEW room Just the day before she and her parents had packed up their cozy little apartment and moved here And here was almost 100 miles away in Hadley Connecticut Her parents despite her noisy and frequent protests had bought this big old run-down farmhouse on five acres of land Sarah’s mom was a librarian and had just been hired to run the new Hadley Town Library Her dad was a writer and had always wanted a separate room where he could work rather than having to use the kitchen table in their tiny apartment Her dad also had always thought of himself as a handyman and wanted this house because it needed a lot of work Sarah and her mother both knew he was anything but handy when it came to fixing things But her father loved to try anyway So both of her parents were very happy about the move Sarah had liked things just the way they were 2
