Nekomah Creek by Linda Crew Read Free Book Online Page B

goes, ‘You always have to be better than everybody, don’t you?’ ”
    “That’s nothing new,” Mom said. “Orin teasing you.”
    Okay,
think
. I didn’t want to upset Dad, telling how Orin kept talking about his dad beating him up. And I didn’t want to hurt his feelings about his pig costume. I had to come up with something safe.
    “I’m dreading fifth grade,” I announced. “Because they have this plastic model of the human body in the fifth grade and I can’t stand thinking about the insides of bodies. You know those wormy things? Intestines? Yuck!”
    Dad frowned. “And that’s what the counselor wanted to talk about?”
    Lucy had toppled the dirty clothes hamper. She stuck a pair of my underpants on her head and paraded around like a queen with a crown, cracking me up.
    “Robby?” Mom said. “How about an answer?”
    “Oh, sorry.” I was still giggling. “What was the question?”
    “Daddy fuss it down!” Freddie yelled.
    “All right, all right,” Dad said, wringing out the diaper.
    The big debate over whether I had problems or not had to wait while Freddie enjoyed his favorite spectator sport—toilet flushing. He held his rabbit up for a better view. Every good thing in life Freddie discovered, he wanted Buddy Wabbit to get in on it, too. Lucy joined them at the toilet bowl.
    “Watch go down!” Freddie ordered them.
    Dad sighed. “What were we saying?”
    Mom shook her head. “Wouldn’t it be amazing if just once we could have a decent discussion about something?”
    “Hey, Lucy,” I said. “What happened to your crown?”
    Lucy grinned at me.
    “Uh oh. Dad, I think she tried to flush my underpants down the—”
    Water. Water and worse. Over the sides of the toilet. All over the floor. The babies screaming and running in circles. Slipping in it. Mom grabbing the plunger from under the sink. Dad lunging for the toilet. Dad saying words he shouldn’t say …
    Thank goodness Mrs. Van Gent couldn’t see this!

  7  

Playground Showdown
    “Now remember our deal,” Dad said at the breakfast table a couple of days later. “What are you going to do today?”
    I pushed a chunk of French toast through the syrup and repeated my promise in a tired voice. “When I’m out on the playground I’ll play with the other kids.”
    “Good.”
    Mom and Dad had dragged it out of me why I’d been sent to the counselor, and the next day Dad put the babies in the wagon and hauled them up for a talk with Mrs. Perkins. He convinced her I shouldn’t have to talk to Mrs. Van Gent if I didn’t feel like it.
    But he also agreed I shouldn’t be reading on the playground.
    “But why can’t I?” I said when he and Mom laid down the law. “I thought you’d be on my side.”
    “Honey, we are,” Mom said.
    “And Mrs. Perkins means well,” Dad said.
    “She’s actually kind of a nice lady,” Mom said. “Don’t you think?”
    I scowled. Why were Mom and Dad always so quick to point out the good side of everybody
I
had to get along with? Why couldn’t I just spout off at somebody I was mad at, like Mom does when she comes home upset about a crabby customer at the print shop? Do you think she’d appreciate me lecturing her on how the guy was probably just having a bad day and he’s really a wonderful person underneath it all? No way!
    “Besides,” Dad went on, “she’s probably right—you shouldn’t spend your whole life with your nose in a book. When you were little you loved to kick a ball around the yard.”
    “Well, I don’t now,” I said.
    “But why not?”
    I shrugged. Maybe in a weird way it had something to do with having all those scoops on my reading ice cream cone. If you’re the best at one thing, it bugs you to be the absolute worst at something else—like maybe people would just be waiting for a chance to make fun of you.
    “I think it’s stupid,” I said, “school people punishing a kid for reading.”
    “Going to the counselor isn’t a punishment,” Mom