Grover G. Graham and Me Read Online Free PDF

kids with more bruises than a stomped-on banana. A gift from home sweet home.
    “Grover seems fine now.” Mrs. Torgle listened to the quiet murmurs from the living room. “Would you like to lick the cake bowl?”
    It took a moment for her words to sink in. Would I like to lick the cake bowl? Give me a break. I was looking for answers, not some little-kid treat.
    I didn’t bother to reply. I’d get the truth from Kate and Jango. Those two snoops were bound to know more than Mrs. T. wanted to tell.

Chapter Seven
    T he next day, Saturday, Mr. Torgle clapped on his cap, uttered his “ahhh,” and asked if we’d like to go into town. The girls carried on like we were headed to Disneyland.
    “Can we go to Uddleston’s, Mr. T.?”
    “They have the best milk shakes there.”
    I tried to blank out my own excitement. Downtown Greenfield. Big whoop. I wished we could go to the new shopping center that had just opened on Route 3. There was supposed to be a toy store there as big as a barn. I bet it was stuffed with the latest computer games. Right then, though, I’d have gone anywhere. At least visiting stores— even the ones downtown—was better than sweeping floors and watching a sweetgum grow.
    As we chugged down that snake-skinny road and onto the highway, the front door beside me jiggled. “Broken lock,” Mr. T. sighed.
    “You’ll fix it soon!” Kate yelled from the backseat.
    “Better sooner than later,” hollered Jango.
    I had to smile. The girls had caught the Torgles perfectly: Mr. T.’s talk about fixing things—that never got fixed—and Mrs. T.’s reply.
    “I guess I’m a later man.” Mr. T. grinned at me while the girls giggled. “So, Ben, any place you want to go today?”
    I cut my eyes at the man, surprised. Basically I was along for the ride. I never liked to ask for too much. Didn’t want to be difficult.
    But even though the twins squealed, “How boring!” when I answered, Mr. T. just nodded. “The library it is,” he said.
    Our first stop was the bank, where Mr. T. withdrew a hunk of cash from the ATM. He stuck some of the money in his wallet. The rest went into an old deposit envelope, which he tucked in the glove compartment. “If I lose my wallet,” he explained to the twins, “I’ll still have enough for those milk shakes.”
    I thought of the locks on my suitcase. Obviously Mr. T. had never met any light-fingered boys from Saint Stephen’s.
    Our second stop was the hardware store where Mr. T. worked. That place was such a jumble of parts and pieces and dusty stuff it’s a wonder the nuts didn’t think they were bolts. That new shopping center on Route 3 was supposed to have a hardware store even bigger than the toy store. I remembered seeing the picture in the newspaper when it opened. Beside it, Mr. T.’s rickety place, with its faded paint, was no better than a nail-selling shack.
    But to see the man open the door, you’d think we were strolling into a palace. He said he was going to buywashers, but I knew better. He really wanted to show off the twins.
    Of course, everyone oohed over their identical cuteness, mixed up their names, laughed.
    I did my camouflage-fish thing, blending in. I wondered what Grover was doing back at the house. Yesterday he had noticed the gumballs on the sweetgum for the very first time. Playing under the tree’s useless shade, the kid had gazed up, completely amazed. Then, murmuring, “ga-ba-da,” he had reached for the prickly things hanging up there. Like he was trying to be friends.
    Funny little guy.
    Suddenly, in the hardware store, Mr. T. put his hand on my shoulder. “This here’s Ben,” he announced to nuts, bolts, and people alike. “Smart as they come. And right good with the baby.”
    Everyone smiled at me and nodded. I blinked back. I felt like a camouflage fish in the spotlight. Somehow, though, the spotlight seemed inside me, not outside. Kind of glowy.
Smart.
The word repeated in my head. Mr. T.’s hand on my shoulder