Miami Jackson Gets It Straight by Patricia McKissack Read Free Book Online

1
Hot, Hot to Summer
Monday, June 1, 7:02 A.M.
    We’re hot, hot to summer! Five more days ’til school’s out! No more math homework. No more book reports. No more geography work sheets.
    And no more big-mouthed girls. The ones who always got something to say. Like Destinee Tate. My main enemy.
    This time next week, String and I will be on our way to sports camp at Camp Atwater. That’s in Wisconsin. But for now, we’ve got to get through this week. First things first, as Daddy always says.
    String is my partner. We’ve been knowingeach other since we hung out in strollers. We started school together. And we’re both in Ms. Rollins’s 3T class. For five more days, that is.
    String’s tall and skinny. Wears glasses and a major league baseball cap all the time. Backwards.
    Next to him, I’m average. Not tall. Not short. Just a regular nine-year-old young brother on the move. We share most everything—books, games, homework. We even had a birthday party together.
    I racked up $25 in gift money on my last birthday. Check this out. Mama says I get to spend it on anything I want! I’m getting cool stuff for camp.
    String plucks a hot waffle out of the toaster and drowns it in syrup. “May I have the rest of your banana?” he asks.
    “Sure.”
    He cuts it up over his waffle. All the time I’m wondering where he’ll put it.
    String loves to eat. He talks about food. He sings about food. Food makes him dance.
    In fact, he eats breakfast at his own house. Then he has a second breakfast at my house.
    He should be huge. But instead, he’s real skinny. So skinny, he can hide behind a shoestring. That’s why everybody calls him String. Not by his real name, Christopher Tyler.
    Nobody calls me by my real name either. Mama and Daddy named me Michael Andrew Jackson after my two grandfathers. When I was two years old, some people started calling me Mike Andy for short.String thought they were saying Mi-a-mi. Miami Jackson. That’s me. I like my name. I like my friend.
7:18 A.M.
    String pours himself a glass of milk. My sister Leesie lowers the Missouri drivers training manual from in front of her face. “Don’t they feed him at the zoo?” she asks.
    Leesie talks to us with her nose turned up.
    String’s an only child, but I’ve taught him how to handle a big sister. He comes back quick with, “Think you’ll pass your driver’s test … on the third try?”
    Slam! “Broke your face,” I say. I’m laughing so hard I almost fall out of the chair.
    Leesie glares at us. “I made a mistakelast time, okay? I didn’t think they’d fail me for running just one little red light.”
    String and I are howling. Leesie tries for a rebound by saying, “When I do get my license, don’t either one of you come asking me to drive you anywhere.”
    I’m ready with the block. “Why would we want to ride with
you?
” We’re laughing even harder.
    “Give your sister a break,” Mama says as she comes into the kitchen. She’s talking and walking in a hurry. “One more week of school! One more! No more early classes. I’m just not a morning person.”
    Mama teaches instrumental music at the junior college. Her specialty is the oboe. Most of the time she schedules her classes in the afternoon. Things go much smoother when she does.
    “Hang tight, Mama,” I say. “We’re hot, hot, hot to summer.”
    Mama butters her toast. “What’s that mean?”
    I explain. “It’s like when we play the game
Pin-the-flag-on-the-flagpole
during rainy-recess. I’m blindfolded. Ah-right? I’m holding the little flag with a thumbtack through it. I’m trying to find the paper so I can pin the flag on top of the little flagpole.”
    I close my eyes and act out what I’m describing. “When I move away from the top, everybody yells,
cold, colder, ice-cold!
Got it, now?”
    String leaps to his feet. He licks syrup off his fingers. “I know. I know. And when you move closer to the top, everybody yells
hot, hot, hot.
”
    “Well, duh!”