The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter Read Online Free PDF Page B

mustache tending it, two women carrying full bags of groceries. Does Henry Lee get new toys every single day of the year?
    â€œThat’s Alice May Turner, not at all to be confused with Lucille Furman.” Alice May the class slut whose dad had her first. Everyone made fun but I felt bad for her. She didn’t come back to school this year, left town to have a baby according to the grapevine.
    â€œBoth of em.”
    â€œHow do you know ?”
    â€œ Every one knows. Okay, that car’s Jack feelin up Millie, and this other one just gets stalled. Jack’s like, ‘What gives?’ Millie: ‘What are you, a Peepin Tom?’ She yells this to the other car, this other couple.” Henry Lee thinks hard about the casting of this new pair. Lightbulb. “Earl Mattingly and Margaret Laherty!”
    â€œWhat!”
    â€œUsually this is their spot, so they’re surprised to see Millie and Jack who approached from south side a the tracks.”
    â€œWhaddya mean ,‘their spot,’ I thought you said the car stalled!”
    â€œYeah, but that’s not very realistic. ‘We’re not the Peepin Toms,’ Earl Mattingly says. ‘ You are!’ Then the guys get out. Jack throws the first punch, sendin Earl fallin against his car, nose spewin blood. The girls are screamin! ‘ Oh Earl! Oh Earl ! ’ ” Henry Lee’s penchant for giving his people stupid voices seems to have run amok with his newest creations. “Uh-oh.” Henry Lee starts the train in the distance. “Unbeknownst to them—”
    â€œStop it.”
    â€œYou son of a bitch,” which is Earl, followed by a weird cacophony Henry Lee rather impressively creates with the boys fighting and the girls screaming.
    â€œSTOP IT!” I turn the train off, only aware afterward that this is the first time I’ve touched the control button because Henry Lee has never invited me to.
    â€œWho toldju to touch my train?” That squeal again.
    â€œNot real people.”
    â€œThat was gonna be a perfect crash!”
    â€œNot real people.”
    Henry Lee stares at the couples, his face pouty. “Okay, not real people. After I finish this out, no more real people.”
    â€œ Not finishing it out.”
    â€œI gotta finish what I started!”
    â€œThen I’m going home.” I walk over to get my books.
    â€œO kay , I won’t crash em!”
    I stare at him from a distance. “She’s not. With him.” He looks up. “She’s not doing it with anybody.”
    â€œMargaret Laherty.” Sneering. “And you get your great knowledge from?”
    â€œI just know.”
    â€œYou like her.”
    â€œNo!”
    â€œGood, cuz I think she prefers boys won’t strain her neck to look down on during the slow dances.”
    â€œShe’s not even two inches taller!”
    â€œHer and Earl Mattingly ain’t no fiction. Slippin the tongue, I seen em back of the football field last—”
    â€œSo what ?I don’t like her!”
    Henry Lee is pulling the red truck out of the fire station. “Oh boy, what a tragedy. The fire is raging. The fire truck gets stuck at the railroad crossing, quick decision: Do they let all the people die in the burning building, or do they take the chance of beating the train and saving all the people? Oh boy!” He starts setting it up.
    I want to leave. But leaving he knows he got to me. So I sit through a few more heartbreaking disasters, then tell him I need to go home, get some Hawai‘i reading in. He waves bye without looking up. When I get to the top of the stairs, I’m surprised to see a folded piece of paper with my name on the seat of a corner chair.
    25 ¢ for 2 Cities til Mon after school?
    Concealed under the message are five nickels.
    â€œRoger stopped by quick on his way to work, left that note for you.” Sally entering, going straight to the sink and opening the