My Dog's a Scaredy-Cat by Henry Winkler Read Free Book Online

least I want to be in charge of the haunted house decorations,” Ashley said right away.
    â€œAnd I want to be in charge of all slimy things,” Frankie said.
    â€œUnless they’re slimy decorations,” Ashley told him. “Then I’m in charge.”
    â€œWhat about a slimy eyeball that’s hanging from the wall?” Frankie asked her. “Tell me, Ash, is that a decoration or is that a slimy thing?”
    â€œGuys,” I said. “Ticktock. We don’t have time for this now. We have to get to the store and get going.”
    â€œRace you to Gristediano’s,” Frankie said. And he shot out of the lobby door like a bolt of lightning.
    Gristediano’s supermarket is just around the corner on Broadway, right next door to Ricardo’s shoe-repair place. Since we don’t have to cross any streets to get there, we are allowed to go there by ourselves. We were there before you could say “Nick McKelty is a scaredy-cat.”
    We grabbed the grocery basket and raced up and down the aisles. I felt like one of those contestants on a TV game show who runs up and down the aisles throwing things into a cart as fast as possible. Frankie and Ashley and I were all talking at once, because the ideas were shooting from our heads like a volcano that had just blown its top.
    â€œWe’ll need grapes for eyeballs,” I said.
    â€œAs the chief of all slimy things,” Frankie said, “I’m not sure grapes are slimy enough for eyeballs.”
    â€œI have an idea,” Ashley said. “Let’s get lychee nuts. They’re slimier and squishier, like a real eyeball.”
    Ashley’s family is from China, and they eat a lot of things that I’d never heard of before. Sometimes when I eat dinner at her house, we have lychee nuts for dessert. I know they sound like they’d have a shell and be crunchy like other nuts, but actually they’re soft and sweet and syrupy.
    â€œI like the way you’re thinking, Ashweena,” I said. “Lychee nuts will give our haunted house an international flavor.”
    Unfortunately, Gristediano’s didn’t have lychee nuts, so we had to give up on international flavor and settle for just plain American grapes.
    â€œPurple or green ones?” Frankie asked.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” I said, “because we’re going to peel them anyway. Underneath their skin, they’re all the same color.”
    â€œWait a minute, Zip,” Frankie said. “You expect me to peel grapes?”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œThat’ll happen when I change my name to Bernice.”
    â€œFrankie, you said you wanted to be in charge of all slimy things,” I told him. “And a grape feels like a grape. But a peeled grape feels slimy, like an eyeball.”
    Frankie saluted, like I was the captain of a spaceship.
    â€œAye, aye, captain,” Frankie said.
    Ashley giggled and saluted, too.
    â€œYou lead, we follow,” she said.
    â€œGood, that’s the way I like it,” I answered in my best Captain Kirk voice. This was really fun. “Now, I figure we’ll need two boxes of spaghetti.”
    â€œSmart thinking, captain,” Frankie said. “We have to have dinner.”
    â€œFrankie, we’re not eating the spaghetti. We’re boiling it until it’s mushy so we can make it into brains.”
    â€œBrains are good,” Frankie said.
    Papa Pete’s words echoed in my head. Two things a brain has to be—slimy and mushy.
    We raced down Aisle 9 and found the pasta section. As I was putting the spaghetti in the cart, Ashley started twirling her ponytail like she does when she’s thinking.
    â€œCaptain, I have a suggestion,” she said, wrapping her ponytail around her index finger. “How about we get some hot dogs and tell people they’re intestines?”
    â€œYeah, we’ll drown them in ketchup and make them into oozing