Mockingbird Read Online Free PDF Page A

is sitting and show it to him. He reads it and his head droops almost to his knees. The bump on his throat goes in and out every time he swallows. He sniffs several times which means at least three times and actually he sniffs five times before I say, What’s wrong with it?
    Nothing, he says. It’s—it’s very well done. I . . . need to go take a shower. You can pick out a video and watch it.
    Yay! And I don’t even have all the stickers I need for a video! I run over to the shelf with the videos and stop. Why are you taking a shower at night? You always take a shower in the morning .
    He is already out of the living room. I’m a little sore . . . and I don’t hear what he says after that except he must be really sore because I hear him crying even before the shower turns on.
    I don’t want to hear the crying so I focus on my favorite videos. I don’t like the ones the other girls at school like with loud music and girls who giggle and dance. I like cartoons. I pick up Cinderella but it’s kind of a stupid story. Not because she lost a shoe. I lose shoes all the time. But if you know where you lost your shoe why don’t you go back and get it? And if you don’t know Devon always says go back to the last place you remember having it and start looking there. Cinderella should go back to the dance. Snow White is okay because of the dwarves and Pocahontas is good because of the animals but Devon says the music is crying music and Dad is already crying so I don’t want that.
    I pull out Bambi and look at it. Bambi reminds me how smart I am. Sometimes I’m smarter than Devon even though he is three years and one month and sixteen days older than me. Even when I was five years old and we watched Bambi. At the beginning the mother deer dies in the fire. You don’t see her die because it’s a cartoon but you see the flames and she never comes back so she is definitely dead. Devon kept saying, She can’t be dead! She can’t be dead, and I said, She’s DEAD Devon! He started crying and saying, She’s coming back! She has to come back, so I had to yell at him, SHE’S DEAD AND SHE’S NEVER COMING BACK, and Dad had to come and take Devon out of the room because like Dad said, You shouldn’t say things like that!
    I don’t know why Devon couldn’t Get It that the mother was dead. Our mother died two years before we watched Bambi so he should’ve known that mothers die and that they don’t ever come back again no matter how much you cry or call for them.
    I look over at Devon’s chest. The air from the heat pump is making the sheet lift up just a bit. Then it stops dead. I look back at the Bambi video and put it back on the shelf because it’s giving me a recess feeling in my stomach and I don’t know why.

CHAPTER 9
    NO RUNNING. WALKING.
    WHEN I GO TO MRS. BROOK TIME she says to go get my coat because we’re switching our schedule.
    Today?
    She nods. And for the rest of the year. She shuts her door and her shoes start squeaking across the floor toward the coat hooks outside my classroom.
    Why? I don’t like switching things. It’s always recess first—yuck—then Mrs. Brook time. Her shoes keep squeaking down the hall so I have to walk-run to catch up with her because there’s No Running In The Halls. What’s the schedule going to be now?
    We’re going to have our time together while we walk around the playground during your regular recess. Then you can stay outside and have recess with the kindergarten through second graders.
    I Look At The Person. Two recesses? I don’t even like one recess.
    But the little kids are very sweet and I’ll be with you for recess with the older kids because sometimes they can be . . . She presses her lips together. I think it’s a mad face. A little rough.
    I think about Josh. And I wonder why a grown-up wants to go to recess at all. Okay. But don’t even try getting on the monkey bars. It’s too dangerous.
    Mrs. Brook smiles. I promise you I’ll avoid the monkey