Shoebag Returns Read Online Free PDF Page B

hands, then whispered “Oh dear, oh dear, I forgot about clothes.”
    But right in front of him, covering the computer, was an old Hootie & The Blowfish T-shirt.
    Stuart Bagg lifted it up carefully, for he did not wish to disturb the sleep of his roach family — a very deep sleep, since they had feasted on an extra-large late-night picnic, filled with crunchy morsels. Shoebag had spent days gathering them, so their dear roach bodies would be exhausted from gobbling the crumbs down.
    The T-shirt was way long, past his knees, the short sleeves past his elbows.
    He was barefoot, of course, and his hair was uncombed.
    The cat appeared as he stood there, and wound himself in and out between his legs, nipping his ankles.
    Sometimes cats were suspicious of small boys who’d once been roaches. Stuart Bagg knew that from experience. Sometimes cats batted at your feet as though you were still an insect, and sometimes they followed you.
    This cat was no exception.
    “Scat!” said Shoebag. “Please scat!”
    The cat jumped away, but he sat at the door to the kitchen eyeing Shoebag thoughtfully.
    Then, while everyone in the school was still asleep, Stuart Bagg set off to find some shoes.

Twelve
    “O H, NO YOU DON’T! ” said Stanley Sweetsong, leaping out of his bed.
    “I thought you were asleep!” said Stuart Bagg. He dropped the boy’s Doc Martens on the floor.
    “Stay right where you are!” Stanley said.
    “Where would I go without shoes or pants?” Stuart Bagg asked him.
    In his blue-and-white striped pajamas, Stanley padded over to the light switch and pressed it.
    Then he stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at Bagg, muttering “Thief! You are a thief in the night!”
    “I am Stuart Bagg, Stanley. Remember when you said you needed a pal? I am your pal.”
    “What kind of a pal steals my only pair of Doc Martens?”
    “You have many pairs of shoes, and I have none, Stanley.”
    The two boys were the same height, and the same weight. While Stanley Sweetsong had brown eyes and brown hair, Bagg’s hair was red, his eyes were blue, and his face was full of freckles.
    “This is a trick,” said Stanley, “and I think Josephine Jiminez is in on it. You have red hair and so does she. You have freckles and so does she. Maybe you are her brother.”
    This was the hardest part about changing from a roach to a boy, explaining it.
    It would never do for Stuart Bagg to say that only moments ago he had been a cockroach.
    He could never tell anyone from whence he came. Humans were too logical and practical to accept the truth. Humans were too finicky to be chums with ex-cockroaches.
    “Josephine Jiminez is not my sister,” said Stuart Bagg. “She is not a part of this, and you must never tell her about me.”
    “Who can I tell about you then? She is my only friend.”
    “You must not tell anyone, Stanley.”
    “But where did you come from?”
    Stuart Bagg remembered what Gregor Samsa used to say. “I come from here and there. I go back and forth.’ Don’t you remember the night you were saying your prayers, and I told you I’d be seeing you?”
    Stanley Sweetsong sat down on his bed. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, then opened them again as though he expected Bagg to be gone. “I was having a horrible nightmare of being put into a tank in the Science Room,” he said. “I have you to thank for waking me up, but maybe I am not awake at all. Or maybe I am awake but seeing things that aren’t there!”
    “You are seeing me, and I am here. You’ll see me as long as you need a pal. Then pffft — I’ll disappear.”
    “Not in my Doc Martens, though.”
    “Not if you say not. I only wanted to be better dressed when we first met. I wanted to make a good impression.”
    Stanley Sweetsong looked chagrined. “I have a lot of clothes,” he said “and you are the same size I am.”
    “I won’t wear anything of yours you really care about.”
    “You can wear whatever you want to wear,” said Stanley