An Imperfect Miracle Read Online Free PDF Page A

banged-up block of concrete, especially not in some miserable little hole like Millridge.
    Carlos scowled and grunted and snorted a few times, until I guess he just couldn’t stand it any longer and had to break in.
    â€œPeople with small brains are always working their big mouths.” Then his scowl turned into a grin, and his eyes brightened up again too. “Like that fellow over there.”
    I looked over to where he was pointing, and there was my English teacher, Mr. Grimes, the same guy who’d snitched on me about talking to Chewy, arguing with Mrs. Marcella about something. He was stroking his little fluffy gray mustache with his pointy fingers, just the way he always did when he was lecturing us at school. And his little eyes were so bright and shiny that they looked like two lightbulbs that someone had just switched on in the basement.
    â€œHe claims that somebody must have ground some dirt into the concrete to make it look like Mary.” Then Carlos tapped his finger off one of the gravy stains on his shirt, or at least it looked like a gravy stain, all brown and splotchy I mean. “Like maybe me, for instance. And he claims that all these people you see honoring Our Blessed Mother are nothing but a bunch of dummies for believing in such hocus-pocus.”
    I felt a little scare roll around inside me. I still wasn’t completely sure that Mary did stuff like this—show up on concrete I mean.
    â€œYou didn’t, did you?” I asked. “I mean smear her face on.”
    Carlos blinked at me a few times, like I’d just insulted him or something. But I think he was just putting me on, because right away he started smiling real sweet and relaxed again.
    â€œOf course not, Nate. And nobody else did either. She’s the real thing. You can take that to the bank.”
    â€œBut how do you really know for sure? Did you see her face land on the concrete?”
    Carlos lifted his arms up and shook his head a little.
    â€œSlow down, Nate. You said yourself that you were the first one to spot her.”
    I felt my belly tighten up, because I couldn’t really prove that I’d been the first one. Plenty of drunks slept down there along Main Street when the weather got warm. Maybe one of them had stumbled on to her and hadn’t told anybody yet. For a second I wondered if I could get in any trouble for it. Then I pointed at a bar across the street with the front screen door propped wide open, so that you could see the drunks lined up on swivel stools inside smoking and drinking.
    â€œHow come she picked the lousy part of town to show up in? Why couldn’t she have found some place nicer and more important, like up by the county jail, for instance? Why couldn’t she have appeared down in Pittsburgh even, where more people could get to see her? And why didn’t she make a little announcement first to tell people she was coming? That would have cleared up a lot of the mix-up, it seems to me. And why does she just sit there on the concrete staring at us? Why doesn’t she say something?”
    Carlos must have liked me asking so many questions, because he patted me real gentle on the shoulder and said how I was “a curious little fellow.” Then he waved his hand toward some stony-faced kids in baggy suits being pushed along toward the steps by their parents.
    â€œMary seems to be whipping up a lot of interest already, even here in these rather humble surroundings. And you said yourself that she healed that little homeless fellow without having to say a single word. Maybe she’s smarter than we give her credit for. And as smart as she is, she picked you to be the one to discover her. Doesn’t that make you feel good?”
    â€œI guess, although some kids are calling me a publicity hound. I think they’re just jealous, though.”
    I glanced down and spotted Chewy sniffing the ground where some old people had just tramped over. It hit me