Brass Monkeys Read Online Free PDF Page B

the others think I was the fabulous B.B., but somehow I couldn’t even begin. Mom was too happy.
    “Are you okay?” she asked me at one point.
    “I’m fine,” I said. “Terrific. Hey, how about some more coffee?”
    “I’d love it.”
    I went out to the kitchen to get it for her, and when I came back, I was stunned to find her crying.
    “Mom, what is it?” Alarmed, I set the cup down and put my arms around her.
    “Nothing honey,” she said. She wiped her eyes quickly and smiled at me. “It’s just that I’m so excited. I don’t know what it is, but I have the best feeling about this town and the people. I hope you do too. Because, if we work at it, me in the salon and you at school, I think it’s going to turn out really wonderful.”
    I hugged her. I knew she had picked up on my nervousness and was worried about me getting in trouble at school and ruining everything. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll work my stupid brains out. I’ll be so good they’ll give me a medal.”
    At that moment I would have promised her anything to make her happy. I got her some Kleenex and then did some dumb Three Stooges’ nose-grabbing stuff—all on my own nose—and finally got her to laugh a little.
    But later, when I was upstairs in bed, I was scared brainless. What had I done? “You dumb, freaking moron,” I moaned softly. No way was I the “brave and resourceful” B.B. of the note, and yet I had let Harriet, Alvin, and Weeser think I was. I pulled the covers over my head and tried to sleep.
    It must have been around midnight when I heard something scrape against the side of the house. I stumbled from the bed and peered out the frosted window. The sky had cleared and the moon was visible, casting a cold light on the yard. I gasped softly. Below, in the drifted snow, somebody had scrawled a message:
    WATCH OUT TOMORROW
    “What the heck?” I mumbled.
    Quickly I scanned the yard looking for an intruder, but there was no sign of anyone. It must be Funny Frank, I thought. Obviously he’d followed me home, and now he was trying to warn me about aliens or whatever. For just an instant I thought about getting Mom up and telling her everything, but I abandoned the idea fast. First of all, she’d freak out if she thought Funny Frank was sneaking around the house, or worse, she’d think I was exaggerating again, trying to make Grindsville look like a bad place to live. I couldn’t do that to her.
    “Get a grip, son,” I whispered, falling into the tough-guy movie talk I always use when I’m nervous. “Don’t panic. It’s just old Frank doing his thing.”
    But thinking about tomorrow had set off all my alarm bells. When I finally drifted back to sleep, one horrible thought kept pinballing through my mind: what would happen tomorrow when I met up with Ming the Merciless and my new friends discovered the truth about me?

6

the woman with hair like red snakes
    The next thing I knew it was morning and someone was yelling at me.
    “C’mon honey, let’s shake a leg!” It was Mom, sounding like an Army drill sergeant. “I’ve got to be at work by 8, and we have to drop off the trailer before I take you to school.” She bounded downstairs, calling back over her shoulder, “So move, move, move!”
    I got up in a total daze. I was staggering around with one leg in my jeans when I remembered the message in the snow. I hopped to the window and scratched a hole in the frost. Outside the day was gray and wintry looking, but the snow had stopped. Down in the yard lay a blank tablet of white.
    “Drifted over,” I muttered. Right then I made a mental note not to mention the message to Alvin or Weeser. I didn’t want to hear about how my life
wasn’t
like a book and how Frank wrote stuff like that all the time, blah blah blah.
    But all this made me suddenly remember the horrible lie I had started. I groaned loudly and vowed, on the spot, to tell my new friends the truth the minute I saw them. With determination, I