Penelope Crumb Never Forgets by Shawn Stout Read Free Book Online Page A

would be (if it wasn’t in my museum closet next to my teeth) and tells Vera that she took it off this morning so that it wouldn’t get messed up while she ate her breakfast and then she forgot to put it on.
    “What?” I say.
    Patsy repeats the part about the breakfast and then starts chewing on her eraser.
    My word. Patsy Cline Roberta Watson never tells lies. And she’s really bad at it.
    But Vera must not think so, because she just smiles and says, “Oh, that’s okay. We can be matching tomorrow.”
    Patsy’s face looks like she’s in pain, like maybe telling that big lie hurts inside. She looks so awful that it almost makes me want to give her necklace back. But then the thought of Patsy and Vera being the kind of friends that switch outfits and buy matching stuff makes me hurt inside, too, so I keep quiet.
    “Don’t forget again, okay?” says Vera before going to her desk.
    “Okay,” says Patsy Cline softly.
    I give Patsy a look that says, That Was a Real Whopper.
    But Patsy isn’t as good as me at telling what different kinds of faces mean, so when she catches me staring, she says, “What, Penelope?” And her words are spears.
    “Nothing,” I say back, all pretendy that I don’t know what is going on and am waiting for her to tell me, Penelope Crumb, her supposed-to-be best friend, the truth. But she doesn’t. “Want to come over after school?”
    She shakes her head. “No, thanks.”
    “Why not?”
    “I have some things needing tending,” she says.
    “Like what kind of things?”
    “Just things.” Then she pulls her math book out of her desk and opens it.
    “Patsy Cline, if you don’t want to tell me what things, then just say so.”
    She stares at me all serious-like and gives me a look that says she doesn’t.
    “Humph,” I say and then nothing else. If Patsy Cline doesn’t know she’s supposed to talk to me about her problems, then I’m not going to be the one to tell her.

12.
    I have to do a report for Miss Stunkel?” I say to Mom as soon as she gets home.
    “Nice to see you, too, Penelope,” she says. “Do you mind if I take my coat off and put my bag down?”
    I help pull off her coat and slide the bag off of her shoulder. The bag is loaded full of books, probably on brains, and it drops to the floor. “Careful,” she says.
    “How come you didn’t tell me?” This is what I want to know.
    Mom says, “Penelope Rae.” (Swollen abdomen.)
    “What?”
    “You were sitting right there when Miss Stunkel told us all about it,” she says.
    “Well, why do I have to do it?”
    Mom says, “Because Miss Stunkel is under the impression that you don’t think museums are worth good behavior.”
    “Why does she think that?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe from your outburst and disrupting the whole experience for your class.”
    I don’t see how my outbursting could be disrupting when all everybody was doing was just shopping, anyway. But I decide to keep this to myself. “I do like museums,” I say. “I like them a whole lot.” For a second or two, I think about telling her about the museum in my closet. So she’ll know that I’m not pretending. But my museum isn’t the kind that’s open to visitors.
    “Then you shouldn’t have any problem showing how much you like them in your report.”
    “Fine,” I say. But it really isn’t.
    My museum floor is getting a little crowded, so I curl up in a corner, hugging my knees to my chest. I look over what I have so far: a necklace, hair, some teeth, and a shoehorn. Only, the teeth don’t count because they are just there for protection.
    “A museum is not truly a museum without some art,” I can practically hear Leonardo say. And he would be right.
    After Mom goes to bed, I sneak into the laundry room. I switch on the light, and this time it’s me surprising Terrible. Apparently you can sneak up on an alien, because he jumps and yells, and he must have had some of Mom’s drawing pencils in his hand, because they spill