Penelope Crumb Never Forgets Read Online Free PDF Page B

story a chance to settle, I start telling the one about Mandrake. But before I can even get to the part about Grandpa Felix’s camera, the one we decided to name Alfred, Patsy’s mom says from the other room, “Patsy, let’s run through this song one more time.”
    “Hi, Mrs. Watson,” I yell.
    Patsy’s mom says, “Honey child!” Patsy’s mom always calls me honey child. And especially today it sounds so nice when she says it. A child made of honey. That’s what she thinks of me. And then she says this: “You make yourself right at home, Vera. Patsy has just about got this song handled.”
    And that’s when I just about go dead. I know I do, because all of a sudden, I can’t feel my tongue, and I can’t feel my toenails. And I wonder how long I have until my heart stops going.
    Patsy Cline’s face turns bright red. “It’s not Vera,” she yells to her mom. “It’s Penelope.”
    “Oh, no matter,” says her mom. As if Vera is also made out of honey. Which I know she definitely is not. Then Mrs. Watson tells me to make myself at home anyway. But she doesn’t call me honey child. Not even once.
    I wait for Patsy in her room. She’s got shelves and shelves of trophies for singing, and a big poster of Patsy Cline, the dead country-western singer, above her bed. I plop down on her bed and close my eyes. I know this room by heart. With my eyes closed, I make a list from my memory of everything in the room.
    Thirteen gold trophies, three silver ones, four blue ribbons, one red, a Patsy Cline poster, green bedspread with tiny yellow butterflies and curtains to match, yellow shaggy rug, white desk and chair, blue plastic bins filled with her cow collection, a keyboard with a microphone, and a lamp with a cow-print shade. Patsy Cline really likes cows.
    I open my eyes and check my memory. Pretty good, except I forgot about the framed picture of me and Patsy on the roller coaster at FantasyLand last summer. And also there are fourteen gold trophies—somehow I missed one. I kneel on her bed and pull down the last trophy in the lineup. It’s small, but heavy, and the gold part is in the shape of a music note. At the base, there’s an engraving: PATSY CLINE ROBERTA WATSON. FIRST PLACE. PORTWALLER’S TALENTED VOICES.
    I turn over the trophy in my hand and wonder if one day I will forget about Patsy Cline, about our trip to FantasyLand, about how much she likes cows. Just like how Grandpa one day stopped thinking about Mandrake Trout and then forgot all about him.
    There is one way to make sure I don’t forget. I open my toolbox and try to stuff the trophy inside. Only, it doesn’t fit too good because of all the other stuff I keep in there. So I dump out my drawing pad and pencils, markers, shoehorn, flashlight, change purse, granola bar, and then try again. The top of the music note scrapes against the side of my toolbox. I push down the lid, but it won’t close all the way.
    As soon as I open the toolbox again to try one more time, Patsy Cline walks in singing, “Worry, why do I let myself worry? Wondering what in the world did I do?” Then she sees me stuffing her trophy into my toolbox and says, “What in the world?”
    “Oh,” I say, yanking the trophy out of my toolbox. I put it back on the shelf and tell Patsy that I was going to draw it while I waited for her to finish her singing practice and that I wanted to see if it would fit in my toolbox, just because. And then I say, “I can fit a whole egg in my mouth.”
    Patsy gives me a look that says, You Are Crazier Than Roger.
    While I put all my things back in my toolbox, I change the subject. “Want to go to the park?”

    “What for?” she says.
    What for? I don’t know what kind of a dumb question that is, because what does anybody go to the park for? But I don’t say that because that’s not the kind of thing you say to your best friend. Instead, I say, “To spin on the turnabout until we get so dizzy we can’t walk straight.”
    Patsy