Christopher Paul Curtis Read Online Free PDF Page B

mistake and gave you your own little private section of the book.
    At the top of each page they've got the word “Musings,” and as a philosopher I like the idea of me sitting around and musing. That sounds a lot better than sitting around staring off into space, and a lot of teachers and other ignorant types confuse the two. I use that section to write down any philosophical things that I might think of.
    I've learned that if you don't write down what you're thinking about, no matter how amazing it is you'll forget it. I don't like to brag, but I know I've had a couple of ideas that were so great and shocking that they'd've won the Nobel Peace Prize for Philosophy. The only problem was I didn't write them down and by the time I got home or got out of the shower they were long gone.
    I turned to the back of my planner and wrote, “Madagascar paint chip in wallet—DON'T THROW OUT—important sign from someone.”
    Darnell Dixon stuck his head into the room. “Man, put that notebook down. You ain't getting paid to be no reporter.”
    I dropped my planner and started back to scraping.
    He said, “I can't believe you're still fooling around with that scraper, how many times I got to tell you no one cares? Quit slacking on my time and get busy and lay down that paint, youngblood.”
    The Sarge used to joke that when it came to getting slum housing up to close-to-livable conditions Darnell was the man.
    Cable bill a little too high? Darnell Dixon can hook you up with a pay-one-time satellite that'll get you so many channels you could get last Thursday's high school volleyball scores from Uzbooboostan if you wanted to.
    Electric rates more than what seems fair? Darnell Dixon's a magic man when it comes to making meters turn a whole lot slower.
    Short on cash and got some insured property that's just sitting around? Darnell Dixon's started more fires than seven out of ten cigarette lighters.
    Want to encourage some low-life tenants to move on? Who you gonna call? Darnell Dixon.
    He probably could've been a tough investment banker, too, 'cause even though the Sarge only pays him minimum wage he buys a new one of those triple-white Rivy Dogs of Love every other year. And they want some big cash for those babies.
    He's the Sarge's favorite employee, someone who she says “knows how to get results.” As part of her plan to leave me the business when she retires she kept sending us out together hoping that some of his tricks of the trade would rub off on me. But Darnell was smarter than that, he knew I was a hopeless case and gave up on me years ago. This ispart of the reason he hates my guts so much. He figures I have it made and don't appreciate it. He thinks I'm as soft as you can get. He's never said it to my face but every time he looks at me his eyes spell out P-U-N-K!
    In the Sarge's eyes Darnell Dixon is also the lord of all painters, only because the brother can completely paint the inside of a two-story, four-bedroom house in five hours and forty-one minutes, closets, attic and basement included. Of course this doesn't leave much time for cleaning up or prep-ping or taping or cutting or moving anything out of the way, but oh well.
    He's painted over dust balls the size of small watermelons, nails as thick as an elephant's leg and picture hooks big enough to snag and hold one of those nuclear submarines, but the Sarge is more worried about speed than anything else so Darnell is her man. And I'm honored to work with him.
    I know that many thousands and thousands of years from now Darnell Dixon will be a true hero to archaeologists, anthropologists and anyone else interested in studying these times. They'll worship him because his painting has single-handedly trapped whole slews of twenty-first century Flint flora and fauna. If there was a magazine called
Archaeology Today
Darnell Dixon would be their Person of the Millennium.
    When it comes to laying down the paint, this brother does not play. He's right up there with