Nekomah Creek by Linda Crew Read Free Book Online

by complaining to the counselor. I hated to do it, but he needed to know what we were up against.
    I took a deep breath and flung open the front door with a bang. “Dad! I have to talk to—”
    “Shh! The babies are still asleep!”
    “Oh. Sorry, I forgot. But Dad—”
    “Will you keep it
down
?”
    I winced.
    Dad softened his voice. “I’m sorry, Robby, but the kids have been
extremely
cranky today—”
    “I know, I know. And they really need their naps.”
    “
I
really need their naps.”
    “Okay, but Dad?”
    “Dadddeeeee!” The thin wail came from the babies’ room.
    “Ding-dong it.” Dad threw down his dish towel. “I s’pose I better get her. If I don’t, she’ll wake up Freddie and I’ll have both of them on my hands.”
    He hurried up the stairs, leaving me standing there with my story still stuck in my mouth.
    I climbed up into my loft and threw myself onto my pile of blankets. I lay there, watching the raindrops slide over my half-circle stained-glass window.
    Dad
didn’t
have any time for me. Maybe I was wrong to complain to the counselor about it, but it was true. Didn’t seem fair, getting in so much trouble for telling the truth. But I guess I should have paid more attention to Amber when she tried to warn me last week.
    Amber Hixon. Exactly why were they sending her to the counselor, anyway? Couldn’t be rowdiness. She was quiet. Sullen, you might say. Even when she read aloud she barely muttered. She was always telling me she had a shelf full of books at home, but I don’t think she ever read any,She didn’t have one single scoop on her reading ice cream cone. Were they bugging her for not reading enough just like they bugged me for reading too much?
    I sighed and rolled over in my blankets. I wished I thought it was something like that-dumb, but not so scary. But when Amber came out of the counselor’s that first day, she said it was about some picture she’d drawn of her family. I looked at my drawing on the wall, the one of us kids tumbling down the stairs. Mrs. Perkins had been so shocked when she saw it. Gee, maybe I should’ve stuck to animal pictures just like Amber should have stuck to unicorns. This
was
about our families. And now wasn’t Mrs. Van Gent asking the exact sort of nosy questions Amber warned me she would?
    How did I ever get myself into this? How was I ever going to get out?
    I thought of my python wrestling match and my cheeks went flaming hot all over again. Had I really done that? But the thing is, when you’re making somebody laugh, and they’re enjoying it so much, it seems only polite to keep it up, right?
    Downstairs, both kids were awake. I guess Dad had decided if he couldn’t keep them quiet he might as well crank them up.
    I heard my favorite Zydeco record start. That’s Cajun music—lots of fiddles and accordions and singing about the spooky black bayous of Louisiana.We like to scream along with the werewolves and zombies in the background. “Zydeco! Zydeco!” the babies are always yelling. That and a lot of French words none of us understands.
    Well, I doubt there’s a person alive who could keep from dancing when they hear this music.
    I hurried down the ladder and swept Lucy up. Now really, I thought, somebody ought to clue Mrs. Perkins in to Queen Ida and her Goodtime Zydeco Band.
    Beats the heck out of the hokey pokey.
    Maybe I should have mentioned the counselor at dinner, but by then I didn’t feel so determined about it, and I hated to spoil everybody’s good mood.
    As usual, Dad started the goofiness. We were having spaghetti, so he launched into that mushy Italian song from
Lady and the Tramp
. You know, where the two dogs have a romantic dinner and the waiters come out with violins and accordions?
    “Thees ees the night, eetsa beauuuuutiful night …”
    Freddie crooned along, batting his eyelashes, mugging like Dad. What a ham.
    So Lucy decided to compete for attention with noodle tricks. Flipping them, twisting