Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli Read Free Book Online

Amanda didn't understand that most of the hurt he felt was not for himself but for her and the rest of the family. She stomped her foot. "You gotta stay!"
    "I don't gotta do anything."
    "You go, you'll starve."
    "Was I starving before I came here?"
    "You'll freeze to death in the winter. Your fingers'll get so stiff they'll break off like icicles."
    "I'll go somewhere."
    "Somewhere? Like the deer pen?"
    "I'll be okay."
    "Or maybe Prairie Dog Town, huh? How about that?" She jabbed him. "You could live in a gopher hole. You'd be starving, so that would be perfect, because then you'd be so skinny you could fit right down there all snuggly in their little tunnels."
    He shrugged. "Sounds cozy."
    This was driving Amanda honkers. He was acting so different, all glum, and wiseacre answers. As if he didn't care, not about anything.
    "Yeah?" she sniffed. "Well, what're you gonna do for a pillow, huh? I know you put my pillow on the floor."
    "I'll use a hibernating gopher."
    "Fuh-nee. And bathroom, huh? Where will you go to the bathroom?"
    "The bushes. McDonald's. Lots of places."
    She hated it. An answer for everything. And the scariest part was, he was probably right. If anybody could survive on the loose, it would be this kid who showed up from Hollidaysburg. Who slept on floors. Who outran dogs.
    He was making her so mad!
    She pointed at him, she sneered, "Well, I'll tell you one thing, buddy boy. You better shut the door on your way out and lock it, because if I get my room back, I'm not giving it up again. So don't ever come crawling back around here." She kicked him in the sneaker. "You hear?"
    "Don't worry," he said flatly.
    "And don't think you're taking any of my books with you this time, either. And you can forget about --- ever --- getting a chance to open my encyclopedia A, which I was almost ready to let you do before you went and started acting all poopy."
    He said, "I'll join the library."
    She jumped up. "Hah! You can't."
    "No?"
    "No. You need a library card."
    "I'll get one."
    "Hah-hah! You can't get a library card without an address!"
    She regretted it as soon as she said it. His head swung, his eyes met hers. His eyes said, Why did you say that? Her eyes couldn't answer.
    He got up and went out and trotted up the street.
    Amanda cried. She tore a magazine in half. She punched the sofa. She kicked the easy chair. She kicked Bow Wow. Bow Wow went yelping into the kitchen. "See!" she yelled at the front door. "See what you made me do, Jeffrey Magee! Jeffrey Maniac Crazy Man Bozo Magee!"
     
    He wasn't back by lunch.
    He wasn't back by dinner.
    "I'm going looking," Amanda told her worried parents. No one tried to stop her.
    She rode her bike all over. East End. West End.
    She even went over to Bridgeport, practically got herself killed on the bridge. She never pedaled so much in her life. She didn't come home till after dark.
    When her parents headed upstairs to bed, she asked if she could stay up to watch TV. They looked at each other and said okay. She was nodding off in the middle of some late, late movie when the door opened and in he walked.
    "What're you doing up so late?" he said.
    "I'm incubating an egg," she snarled.
    He shrugged and went upstairs. She closed her eyes and smiled.
     
    Next morning a little kid from three blocks away came knocking at the front door. His yo-yo string had a knot fat as a mushroom.
    As Amanda watched Maniac tackle the knot, an idea slithered into her brain. When the little kid left with his string good as new, she said, "Jeffrey, if I knew some way that would make it okay for you to stay, would you?"
    "What do you mean 'okay'?" he said.
    "I mean, that even if there's one or two people who aren't too wild about you now --- and that's all there really are --- that even they would like you. And everybody else who already likes you, they'll like you even more."
    Purely out of curiosity, Maniac replied, "How's all that supposed to happen?"
    Amanda told him about Cobbles Knot.
     
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