Cloudy with a Chance of Boys Read Online Free PDF Page B

anyway?”
    “What are you doing in here?” she asked.
    “I asked you first,” I said.
    “Okay, okay. I didn’t want to tell you, but when I got home from school, Sir Croaks-a-Lot was not in his tank. He escaped! I don’t know how he got out, and I know I’m not supposed to be in here when Alex isn’t home, but I thought I heard him in here and he might be hiding.”
    “I’ll help you look, Duck. Alex will freak if she finds a frog in her room.”
    I crawled around on hands and knees, helping Joey look for her frog. We looked under the bed, behind the desk, even under the rug. “How come frogs never croak when you’re looking for them?” I asked.
    “I don’t know,” said Joey. “Maybe if we stop looking, he’ll start croaking.”
    “Here froggy, froggy,” I called.
    “So, what were you coming in here for?” Joey asked.
    “None of your beeswax. I was looking for my . . . poetry book I’m using for Language Arts, if you must know.”
    “It’s on your bed in our room.”
    “Oh, I guess it was my Earth Science book —”
    “In your backpack. Also on the bed.”
    “Whatever, Miss Snoopy Pants.” The truth is, I didn’t want to admit to Joey I was looking for one of Alex’s magazines or a book — anything that might help me with The Truth About Boys.
    I stood up and ran my finger across the spines of books on Alex’s shelf. Speak. Cut. Crush. Glass. Sold. Feed. Fade. Flipped. Prom. Prep. Peeled. Sleep. Wake. Beige. Lost. Gone. Sheesh! No wonder teenagers grunt and speak in one-syllable words.
    Twisted. Trouble. Loser. Lucky. I Was a Teenage Fairy. What do you know? Seven whole syllables.
    “I don’t think a frog would be hiding inside a book,” said Joey. “Unless he’s an origami frog.”
    I returned Lucky to the shelf and straightened the spines of the books, lining them back up the way they were.
    Joey peered into Alex’s closet. “Hey, I know. Maybe Sir Croaks-a-Lot is hiding with Alex’s journal, you know, in the shoebox in the closet under the fleece blanket she made in Girl Scouts one time.”
    “So, he’s not hiding in a book, but he can read Alex’s journal?”
    Joey shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
    “Did you try her dresser?” I asked.
    “Are you kidding? She’ll kill me if I go in there.”
    “Well, she’ll kill you worse for going in her closet and reading her journal. Besides, how do we know he’s even in here?”
    “C’mon, Stevie. Help! What if Alex comes home any second and catches us?”
    “Us?”
    “Please?”
    “Shh. Quiet,” I whispered, holding my finger up to my lips. Creck-eck. Creck-eck.
    Joey’s eyes got as round as marbles. The sound was coming from the direction of the dresser. I pointed and motioned for Joey to check it out.
    Joey and I started opening drawers and rummaging through stuff. The top drawer was just one big tangle of junk — from heart-shaped rocks to headbands to Hello Kitty key chains.
    Joey pawed through Alex’s underwear drawer.
    “Joey, not in there!”
    “How do you know?”
    “Hey, look at this!” Joey held up a pair of light blue undies. “They have writing on them. What’s Vendredi mean?”
    “How should I know? Sounds like some kind of sports car to me.” Joey and I peered more closely at the words — Mercredi, Jeudi, Vendredi . . .
    “It’s the days of the week in French!” I proclaimed, too loudly.
    “But Alex takes Spanish,” said Joey. I shrugged my shoulders.
    “Keep looking.”
    “Maybe he’s in here,” said Joey. “Maybe he’s hiding in Alex’s T-shirts because they’re all soft and cozy.”
    Joey flipped through a stack of folded tank tops and T-shirts. “Hey, all these shirts have words.”
    TROUBLEMAKER. VERY IMPORTANT PRINCESS. RARE BIRD. FREAK OF NATURE.
    “Geez,” I said to Joey. “Who knew Alex had so many tanks, huh?”
    “Every single one has writing. She could wear them all at one time and be a walking encyclopedia.”
    I couldn’t help cracking up as I looked through a