Tales of the Madman Underground by John Barnes Read Free Book Online Page B

couple minutes late to class, so there was more socializing and less math in my life.
    Which was good because Bonny was early to class, and I hadn’t really seen her all summer except to wave to. It had been kind of a relief when she’d dumped me last spring, but I still wanted to be friends. When school was out, we didn’t see much of each other because she worked as much as I did, maybe more.
    Her parents had an import shop up in Toledo. They’d go on long trips to buy stuff for it, but the shop only made about enough to pay for those trips, plus to pay the help and keep the doors open, not much more. Now and then they’d get a jackpot, some guy would come in and buy up a lot of stuff, and then they’d give Bonny some serious money to keep the house going, maybe two or even three months’ worth of money, but that only happened maybe once a year.
    Meanwhile, Bonny had to have money for groceries, clothes for her younger sister and two brothers, the house payment, and all that. She said her parents never asked her where she got it, didn’t even seem to be aware that most of the time when they were away they weren’t sending any money.
    The shop paid straight into her parents’ account, which Bonny couldn’t take money out of, so if they didn’t send a check, like they usually didn’t, whatever money the shop made might as well have been on the moon.
    She wasn’t going to nark on her parents, since that could mean the kids being taken away or even her parents being busted and doing jail time. So Bonny made the money, one way and another. And she was in the Madman Underground because now and then she’d throw a fit of temper or a crying jag in front of teachers. Bonny would never explain that the screaming and throwing things wasn’t “just for no reason” as teachers would say about her, but because she was getting by on a couple hours of sleep and worried sick about paying the mortgage and hadn’t heard from her folks in a month while they knocked around the south of France. She had at least a couple of those a month, so she got her ticket every year like the rest of us.
    Except me, of course, Mr. Normal. Remember, this was my year to be normal. With friends, of course. In my guise as the normal member of the Madmen.
    Bonny was a cheerleader because she did anything that would look good on those college apps—cheerleader, choir solos, Service Club, plus all the science clubs, math team, and chess team, but she wasn’t much of a conformist. Today she was looking sort of like Grace Slick or Ja nis Joplin after a three-year famine, in three layers of skirts and a vest with a lot of gold piping over a blouse that looked like the curtains from a funeral home, and enough bracelets for any six regular girls, and her red hair was spilling out of a purple scarf, like maybe she’d been thrown off the belly dancing squad for overdoing it.
    “So,” I said, “still robbing thrift stores?”
    She slapped my arm, not hard. “Ask me about my new job, Karl. Big hint, I can’t dress like this there. I have to wear a uniform.”
    “Oh, my god, I’m being replaced. I knew Mayor Mc-Cheese was a treacherous bastard and he’d stab me in the back. Just watch out when you’re alone with Ronald McDonald—he likes to squeeze the meat and pat the buns.”
    She snorted. “Actually it’s even grosser than mopping the McPiss off the McFloor in the McCrapper. Not the clown—the monkey.”
    “Pongo’s?”
    “Yeppers. They had a girl quit and Darla got me in before they even advertised it. Steady hours and it won’t conflict with choir or cheerleading. How’s that for cool?”
    “Cool,” I agreed. “How many jobs you have right now?”
    “Oh, cleaning out those offices downtown, handing out cigarette samples at the concerts in Toledo, the paper route, and this. So four. Where are we?”
    “Still tied,” I said. “I have cleaning McDonald’s, selling ads for WUGH, helping Browning deliver couches, and my gardening