Paper Towns pdfdrive com

OMNICTIONARIAN96: Hey.
QTHERESURRECTION: Paper towns = pseudovisions.

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I think she wants me to find her body. Because she thinks I can handle it.
Because we found that dead guy when we were kids.
I sent him the link.
OMNICTIONARIAN96: Slow down. Let me look at the link.
QTHERESURRECTION: K.
OMNICTIONARIAN96: Okay, don’t be so morbid. You don’t know
anything for sure. I think she’s probably fine.
QTHERESURRECTION: No you don’t.
OMNICTIONARIAN96: Okay, I don’t. But if anybody’s alive in the
face of this evidence . . .
QTHERESURRECTION: Yeah, I guess. I’m gonna go lie down. My
parents get home soon.
But I couldn’t calm down, so I called Ben from bed and told him my theory.
“Pretty morbid shit, bro. But she’s fine. It’s all part of some game she’s
playing.”
“You’re being kind of cavalier about it.”
He sighed. “Whatever, it’s a little lame of her to, like, hijack the last three
weeks of high school, you know? She’s got you all worried, and she’s got Lacey
all worried, and prom is in like three days, you know? Can’t we just have a fun
prom?”
“Are you serious? She could be dead, Ben.”
“She’s not dead. She’s a drama queen. Wants attention. I mean, I know her
parents are assholes, but they know her better than we do, don’t they? And they
think so, too.”
“You can be such a tool,” I said.
“Whatever, bro. We both had a long day. Too much drama. I’ll TTYS.” I
wanted to ridicule him for using chatspeak IRL, but I found myself lacking the
energy.
After I hung up with Ben, I went back online, looking for a list of
pseudovisions in Florida. I couldn’t find a list anywhere, but after searching
“abandoned subdivisions” and “Grovepoint Acres” and the like for a while, I
managed to compile a list of five places within three hours of Jefferson Park. I
printed out a map of Central Florida, tacked the map to the wall above my

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computer, and then added a tack for each of the five locations. Looking at the
map, I could detect no pattern among them. They were randomly distributed
among the far-flung suburbs, and it would take me at least a week to get to all of
them. Why hadn’t she left me a specific place? All these scary-as-hell clues. All
this intimation of tragedy. But no place. Nothing to hold on to. Like trying to
climb a mountain of gravel.
Ben gave me permission to borrow RHAPAW the next day, since he was going
to be driving around, prom shopping with Lacey in her SUV. So for once I didn’t
have to sit outside the band room—the seventh-period bell rang and I raced out
to his car. I lacked Ben’s talent for getting RHAPAW to start, so I was one of the
first people to arrive at the senior parking lot and one of the last to leave, but
finally the engine caught, and I was off to Grovepoint Acres.
I drove out of town on Colonial, driving slowly, watching for any other
pseudovisions I might have missed online. A long line of cars trailed behind me,
and I felt anxious about holding them up; I marveled at how I could still have
room to worry about such petty, ridiculous crap as whether the guy in the SUV
behind me thought I was an excessively cautious driver. I wanted Margo’s
disappearance to change me; but it hadn’t, not really.
As the line of cars snaked behind me like some kind of unwilling funeral
procession, I found myself talking out loud to her. I will play out the string. I will
not betray your trust. I will find you.
Talking like this to her kept me calm, strangely. It kept me from imagining the
possibilities. I came again to the sagging wooden sign for Grovepoint Acres. I
could almost hear the sighs of relief from the bottleneck behind me as I turned
left onto the dead-end asphalt road. It looked like a driveway without a house. I
left RHAPAW running and got out. From close up, I could see that Grovepoint
Acres was more finished than it initially appeared. Two dirt roads ending in cul-
de-sacs had been cut into the dusty ground, although the roads had eroded so
much I could barely see their outlines. As I walked up and down both streets, I
could feel the heat in my nose with each breath. The scalding sun made it hard to
move, but I knew the beautiful, if morbid, truth: heat made death reek, and
Grovepoint Acres smelled like nothing except cooked air and car exhaust—our

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cumulative exhalations held close to the surface by the humidity.
I looked for evidence she had been there: footprints or something written in
the dirt or some memento. But I seemed to be the first person to walk on these
unnamed dirt streets in years. The ground was flat, and not much brush had
grown back yet, so I could see for a ways in every direction. No tents. No
campfires. No Margo.
I got back in RHAPAW and drove to I-4 and then went northeast of town, up to a
place called Holly Meadows. I drove past Holly Meadows three times before I
finally found it—everything in the area was oak trees and ranch land, and Holly
Meadows—lacking a sign at its entrance—didn’t stand out much. But once I
drove a few feet down a dirt road through the initial roadside stand of oak and
pine trees, it was every bit as desolate as Grovepoint Acres. The main dirt road
just slowly evaporated into a field of dirt. There were no other roads that I could
make out, but as I walked around, I did find a few spray-painted wooden stakes
lying on the ground; I guessed that they had once been lot line markers. I
couldn’t smell or see anything suspicious, but even so I felt a fear standing on
my chest, and at first I couldn’t understand why, but then I saw it: when they’d
clear-cut the area to build, they’d left a solitary live oak tree near the back of the
field. And the gnarled tree with its thick-barked branches looked so much like
the one where we’d found Robert Joyner in Jefferson Park that I felt sure she
was there, on the other side of the tree.
And for the first time, I had to picture it: Margo Roth Spiegelman, slumped
against the tree, her eyes silent, the black blood pouring out of her mouth,
everything bloated and distorted because I had taken so long to find her. She had
trusted me to find her sooner. She had trusted me with her last night. And I had
failed her. And even though the air tasted like nothing but it-might-rain-later, I
was sure I’d found her.
But no. It was only a tree, alone in the empty silver dirt. I sat down against
the tree and let my breath come back. I hated doing this alone. I hated it. If she
thought Robert Joyner had prepared me for this, she was wrong. I didn’t know
Robert Joyner. I didn’t love Robert Joyner.
I hit at the dirt with the heels of my fists, and then pounded it again and
again, the sand scattering around my hands until I was hitting the bare roots of
the tree, and I kept it up, the pain shooting up through my palms and wrists. I
had not cried for Margo until then, but now finally I did, pounding against the

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ground and shouting because there was no one to hear: I missed her I missed her
I missed her I miss her.
I stayed there even after my arms got tired and my eyes dried up, sitting there
and thinking about her until the light got gray.

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