Maniac Magee Read Online Free PDF

in. Which, she soon found out, was the case.
    Late one night she opened the door and found Maniac sleeping on the floor. She lugged him onto the bed, but by the next night he was back on the floor. Maniac just couldn’t stand being too comfortable. Lying on a mattress gave him a weird feeling of slowly rising on a scoop of mashed potatoes.
    He was that way with chairs too. If he had a choice, he usually sat on the floor.
    Other strange things happened in the house.
    Such as: the yellow bucket and sponge spent more time gathering dust in the cellar and less time in Mrs. Beale’s hands. Because, with Maniac around, Hester and Lester lost their interest in crayoning everything in sight. And therefore, sometimes for fifteen minutes in a row, Mrs. Beale was seen doing something she hadn’t done since the little ones were born: nothing.
    Such as: Amanda started leaving her suitcase of books home.
    Such as: everybody’s fingertips started to heal. Because Maniac took over the endless, thankless job of untying Hester and Lester’s sneaker knots.
    Such as: Hester and Lester started to enjoy taking a bath. Which was the solution to a very huge problem in the Beale household.
    Once upon a time, Hester and Lester loved to get a bath — as long as Amanda got one with them. It was a little crowded, especially when the little ones added their boats and floating dinosaurs, but it was fun and warm and yelpy and soapy.
    Then came the day when Amanda entered fourth grade, and she decided she was getting too old to tub it with her little brother and sister. They begged her and begged her, but she wouldn’t get in. They tried to storm the bathroom when she was in there, but she locked the door on them.
    And so the little ones went on strike. They placed their hands on
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile
and swore they would never take another bath until Amanda joined them.
    And even though they couldn’t stop their much larger mother from lifting them up and plunking them into the water, they
could
refuse to touch the soap or washcloth. They could make her do it. And they could sit there all stiff with their chins down in their chests and their arms folded tightly and their legs clamped together. And if their mother wanted to wash their armpits, she would have to get a crowbar and pry their arms up, because they sure as heck were not going to move.
    That’s the way it was for a long time, until Maniac arrived.
    On that first Sunday, as soon as the little ones found out that their new pal had slept over, they mobbed him: “Jeffrey! Jeffrey! Get a bath with us! Will ya?”
    Maniac replied, “Sure, okay,” not thinking much about it. After all, it was still before breakfast.
    But the little ones never let up, and at exactly 9-15 A.M., the three of them got into the tub. By the time they got out, it was too late to go to church and almost lunchtime.
    From then on, the baths usually took place at night. Sometimes Mrs. Beale would poke her head in and stare: one little black girl, one little black boy, one medium white boy. And she would smile and wag her head and sigh: “Never saw such a tub.”
    The time she heard Hester and Lester yelling for help, though, she was downstairs. She came running. “What’s the matter?”
    The little ones pointed. “Look!”
    She looked. Maniac was covered with blotches — round, red blotches, all shiny from the bath water. They looked something like little pepperonis.
    They took him to the doctor. The doctor took a look and said it wasn’t chicken pox and it wasn’t measles. He said it might be an allergy. He asked what the boy had had for dinner.
    Mrs. Beale answered. “Pizza.”
    “Well!” The doctor chuckled. “Can’t be that. Can you imagine a youngster getting sick on pizza?”
    Everybody laughed.
    “Besides,” said the doctor, “this would have shown up on him since he was little, most likely, every time he came near a pizza.” He turned to Maniac, still chuckling. “You
have
eaten pizza before,