Me and Rupert Goody Read Online Free PDF Page A

after it was cut.”
    I watched this scene with a growing feeling of upset. I’d been to this ruby mine about a billion times before, scooping and sieving for hours, and ain’t never found a ruby come close to that one. Now along comes Rupert B. Goody, too dumb to know left from right or up from down, finds himself a ruby like that. I clenched my teeth real tight and shot Rupert a look.
    I was almost hoping Marny was right. She was all the time telling me the ruby mine stayed in business thanks to
fools like me. “You’re so stupid I can’t hardly believe it, Jennalee,” she says to me. “Them rubies ain’t worth nothing, cut or not. You think them crooks would be putting priceless rubies in a bucket of dirt? Get real, Jennalee.”
    Still, when I saw that big ruby in Rupert’s hand, I couldn’t stop myself from feeling eat up with jealous.
    Uncle Beau patted Rupert on the back. “Well, I guess you got yourself something worth holding on to.”
    Rupert nodded and put the ruby in the pocket of his overalls.
    Â 
    The ride home was long and quiet. I watched the signs along the roadside go by, but I didn’t read them. I was too stirred up inside to keep my mind on anything but Rupert Goody nosing his way into everything.
    Uncle Beau tried to get a conversation going. “Jennalee’s got a whole boxful of rubies, don’t you, Jennalee?” he said.
    â€œMmmm.”
    I could feel Rupert staring at me, but I kept my head turned toward the window.
    â€œHow many rubies you got, Jennalee?” Rupert said.
    â€œA bunch.”
    â€œBig ones?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œLittle ones?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œWhat you gonna do with all them rubies, Jennalee?”

    â€œMake me a crown and call myself Queen of the World.” There. That shut him up. I smiled at my reflection in the window.
    We weren’t even out of Cherokee before Rupert dropped his head back on the seat and started snoring to high heaven. Every curve we went around sent his head flopping my way and I had to nudge him with my shoulder. That’s the last thing I needed was Rupert drooling on me.
    Before it got too dark, I decided to take a look at my rubies. I took my plastic bag out of the glove box and dumped the dirty rubies out in my lap. Out plopped Rupert’s ruby. There was no mistaking it, big as a golf ball, in the middle of my little pea-sized rubies. I picked it up and rolled it around in my hand.
    I looked at Rupert, snoring away Now, how do you suppose he managed to get his ruby in my bag? Just goes to show how sneaky he was. But I reckon the bigger question was, why’d he have to go and do a thing like that? I closed my fist over the ruby, feeling its roughness in my palm.
    I reckon he thought he was going to whittle me down. Make me not care that he was horning in on me and Uncle Beau, taking the predictable out of things for me.
    Rupert’s head flopped over on me for about the hundredth time. I pushed it off me with my ruby fist but he didn’t even wake up. I glared at him in the darkness, trying to send my thoughts his way Rupert B. Goody, I thought, you trying to whittle me down, you might as well stop now, cause Jennalee Helton ain’t one to be whittled.

Six
    While Rupert was helping Ned Fuller put new shingles on his house, me and Uncle Beau drove over to Fletcher.
    â€œI want to personally shake the hand of every person that’s helped Rupert,” he told me.
    I didn’t give him a chance to say whether or not he wanted me to go along. I just packed us some sandwiches and jumped in the truck next to Jake.
    Uncle Beau had a list of names on a paper napkin.
    â€œWe’ll just start at the top and work our way down,” he said.
    The ride there felt like the good ole days. I told Uncle Beau about how John Elliott threw a shoe at Jimmy and it busted out the window and a piece of glass flew clear across the room and cut Marny