Rabble Starkey Read Online Free PDF

do.
    "Wanta go talk to Sweet-Ho?" Veronica asked.
    "She's ironing. It makes the whole kitchen hot. I don't think I could stand it in there. I might faint."
    Veronica nodded. "Anyway, we're supposed to watch Gunther, and Gunther's supposed to stay outside and let fresh air get to his ringworm."
    Poor old Gunther. Nobody but Gunther ever had so many ailments, one after another. Sweet-Ho said it was nothing short of amazing that he had such a good disposition, because most people who had pinkeye and ringworm and impetigo all in the space of one summer would get pretty grouchy, but not Gunther. I guess he was just used to it. Gunther thought it was
normal
to eat canned spaghetti for breakfast and then have medicinal ointment smeared on him. Shoot, he never knew anything else from the time he was a baby.
    "Let's go down to the creek, then. Maybe it'll be cooler down by the creek. We can take Gunther wading, and we can look for frogs."
    So we decided to do that, and I ran in to tell Sweet-Ho where we was going, while Veronica stacked up the
Reader's Digests
so's we could look at them later and maybe do the "Humor in Uniform" out loud.
    Sweet-Ho was ironing, like I thought, but she gave me some cookies for me and Veronica, and a hard-boiled egg for Gunther. Both refrigerators, house and garage, had a special supply of Gunther's eggs, with "HB" penciled on the shells.
    The porch was right off of the kitchen, and Mrs. Bigelow must have been on the porch, like I said. But I don't remember. I didn't look. Mrs. Bigelow wasn't the kind of person you seek out. But I think this: that if she was on the porch, laying on the glider smiling at a book, she must of heard me tell Sweet-Ho that we was going down to the creek with Gunther. She probably heard that, and lay there smiling, and maybe after a long time it began to take shape in her head, so that she began to think behind that empty smile: the creek. They took Gunther to the creek.
    That's the only thing I can figure out about what happened later, that she heard me talk to Sweet-Ho, and that it took a long time to take shape in her mind, what she heard.
    Anyways, I put the cookies and Gunther's egg in my pocket and went back out to the yard. Veronica had tidied up the
Reader's Digests,
and Gunther had placed his pet bug in a safe spot and was standing there hiccuping, with a look of anticipation on his homely ointmented face. He always got this sweet
look of anticipation when something was about to happen, and Veronica had told him we was going to take him to the creek to look for frogs.
    He trotted along behind us like a puppy and we headed down the driveway. The creek isn't far from the Bigelows' house, but first we had to get past the Coxes', where Norman was usually lying in wait, up to no good.
    Norman has a whole storehouse full of bad things that he yells at Veronica and me. Here's a couple I've collected in my mind over the years:
    "Veronica-Bonica Pigelow and her rotten piggy-wiggy brother, nyah nyah!"
    "Parable Starkey-naked, nyah nyah!"
    That's the kind of stuff he yells, and sometimes he throws stuff, like chestnuts from the tree by his house in the fall, or if he can't think of anything else to throw, he has this endless supply of paper clips because of who his father is. He has this way of zinging paper clips and it really hurts.
    Norman's father is the head minister of the Highriver Presbyterian Church, and he has this office in their house, with all these paper clips and erasers and stuff. I do covet all that office stuff, but I would never in the world let Norman know that.
    "Hey, Starkey, what's it like to live in a garage instead of a house, huh?"
    That's what he yelled that day, when we passed on our way to the creek with Gunther.
    And this: "You sleep in a
car,
Starkey-Parkey?"
    At least he wasn't throwing stuff. Shoot, I don't
much care what he yells, it only shows his terrible upbringing.
    Veronica yelled back: "At least she doesn't sleep in a garbage can like