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

“I need to tell you something.”
    “Okay,” I said.
    “I bought something,” she said.
    “Is it a goat?” I asked.
    Because I’d always secretly hoped to be a goat owner.
    “Better,” she said.
    But I couldn’t think of anything better than a goat. So I didn’t guess again.
    “Carpet!” She rolled over onto her stomach and slapped the floor. “For your room, too. They’re laying it first thing Monday. Finally, the whole house will match.”
    I was both happy and sad. I was happy because my mother was excited. But I was sad because I knew that my father was going to see all this new stuff and be so worried about going back in the hole that he’d blow up. It would have been a different story if she’d won the new carpet. But she hadn’t.
    While blowing up, my dad loved to yell, “Don’t try to manipulate me, Maxine.”
    And my mother’s favorite line to yell back was “If you wanted a tightwad, you should’ve married a tightwad.”
    Before Sally moved, I spent the night at her house a few times and her parents never yelled at each other. They played chess. We didn’t have that game. We had Monopoly and Sorry and Twister and Battleship. And I have found that those games encourage yelling. (And cheating.)
    As I walked over to the Bratbergs’, it was nice to get away from all those paint fumes. While helping Mrs.Bratberg, I always stayed very alert, and I never acted like a dingo. That would’ve been a mistake. I took a deep breath and rang their doorbell. Mrs. Bratberg opened the door and then smacked her forehead with the heel of her hand.
    “Camille, I forgot to call you. We don’t need you today. My mother’s here. She’s going to help me.” “Okay,” I said.
    “Here’s a quarter for coming over,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
    I took her quarter. She shut the door. Then I picked up a little rock so I could put it in my pocket and make my quarter jingle. It was not my favorite way to jingle, but it worked. Walking home, I heard a ton of screaming coming from the Bratbergs’ house.
    “Do not put your underwear in the microwave!” “You cannot use glue in that manner!” “Get your grandma out of that plastic bag!” I guess I was happy that I wasn’t at the Bratbergs’. I felt tired. I probably didn’t have the energy needed to properly look after those three. Walking home, jingling my rock and quarter, I thought about where I might find more loose change. Maybe inside the clothes hamper. Or in my parents’ pants pockets.
    Shake. Shake. Shake . On the outside, my house looked very normal. But I knew that wasn’t the truth. I knew that last night my mother had purpled ourhouse. As I pulled open the back door and saw those walls again, I hoped that maybe secretly my dad loved the color purple. Maybe the reason he never wore purple or mentioned purple or bought anything purple wasn’t related to the fact that he probably hated purple. Maybe he’d step inside our house and yell, “I love this, Maxine! Who cares about whether or not we’re back in the hole. Let’s buy a pizza and celebrate!”

Chapter 6
Homework Blues
    S unday, after lunch, my mother set my schoolbooks and a stack of papers down in front of me. I blinked at them several times.
    “It should only take an hour,” she said, patting me on the head.
    “If I can do all my homework in an hour at the kitchen table, why do I have to spend all day at school?” I asked.
    And for a second, I thought maybe I could convincemy mother to let me miss school for a few months and sit and learn at the kitchen table instead.
    “Camille, you’re not going to drop out of the fourth grade,” my mother said. “Life has ups. And life has downs.” She traced her pointer finger through the air like it was climbing a series of mountains. Then I watched her finger drop to her side.
    “Okay,” I said.
    “Do you want a piece of cheese?” she asked.
    My mother thought cheese was good for me because it had protein in it. And protein