Camille McPhee Fell Under the Bus Read Online Free PDF Page A

around anymore. Ever.

Chapter 5
Purpled
    A fter I ran outside, I wasn’t sure what to do. So I threw the saw into a snowbank. Then I covered it with a bunch more snow. And the broken bough of a pine tree. And even more snow. I hadn’t realized this about myself, but I was pretty good at hiding power tools. I ran back inside and slammed the door so fast that my movie-star hair slapped me right in the face. A clump of it swung into my mouth and got stuck there and I spit it out. Then I presented my two empty hands. Ithought taking the saw would slow my mother down. But I should have known better.
    “Camille, it doesn’t matter if you hide Jimmy’s saw. The world is big. There’ll always be another saw.”
    My mother walked outside. When she came back, she was holding the saw and shaking the slush off it. I guess I wasn’t as good at hiding power tools as I thought. She set the saw down and frowned at me. That’s when Jimmy pulled out a tool called a stud finder. He placed it flat against the wall and dragged it across the surface. Then he grunted.
    “That doesn’t sound good,” my mother said.
    “Maxine, I’m having second thoughts about this wall,” he said.
    I rubbed my hands together. I hoped Jimmy’s second thoughts about the wall were a lot like my first thoughts.
    “My vision is changing,” he said.
    My mother gasped.
    “Well, if you’re losing your vision, maybe you should see an eye doctor,” I said. “And stay away from our wall,” I added.
    “The cost,” he said. “The damage. Why don’t you paint it your favorite color and turn it into a meditation wall?”
    My mother didn’t look too thrilled. But I did. Iwas starting to like Jimmy a lot more than I had five minutes earlier.
    A meditation wall didn’t sound bad at all. I smiled. I felt that with Jimmy’s help, I’d saved what I needed to save.
    Because my mother didn’t want to leave me home alone, Jimmy went to the store and brought back her number-one paint choice. I didn’t ask what color it was. I wanted to wake up in the morning and be surprised. After a dinner of chicken noodle soup and wheat crackers, I went to bed. In my dreams, I could hear the swish of a paint roller.
    That night, I dreamed about Sally. She rode a purple bicycle all over Japan without me. She steered dangerously close to the ocean, but she never fell in. I kept yelling her name, but she couldn’t hear me, because I was living in Idaho. Then she stopped her bike and yelled at a low-flying bird, “Why don’t you call me, Camille? Seriously. I know you’ve been banned from making long-distance calls, but why don’t you buy an international calling card or something!”
    When I woke up, I was surprised that a fourth grader could have such a meaningful dream. Or that Sally knew I’d been banned from making long-distance calls. Or that she would yell at a bird like that. But she did. Suddenly, I knew what I needed to do to make Sally stop forgetting me. I needed to call her. Also, Icould remind her to send me that kimono. Because maybe she’d forgotten what size I was.
    Figuring this out made starting my day feel very good. Because I had a plan. I would dig through our sofa cushions and look for loose change. And after that, I would babysit the Bratbergs. And maybe I’d even ask to be paid in quarters, so I could jingle and feel rich all the way home. I left my room that morning anxious to see what color my mom had painted the meditation wall.
    Uh-oh. I walked through the house with my mouth wide open. I couldn’t believe it. For some reason, in addition to the meditation wall, my mom had decided to paint every inch of our house purple. Even the baseboards and the light switches. Wow. This wasn’t good. I knew my father would explode. But there wasn’t much I could do about that now. So I ate a banana and decided to get to work.
    A sofa can be very deep. I reached in all the way up to my shoulder. I looked underneath it with a flashlight, too. But I