The Hole in the Wall Read Online Free PDF Page B

around the prepositions on my English worksheet. The page was looking pretty magnificent, if I do say so, but I’d been toiling over it for five whole minutes and needed a break.

    It wasn’t the Mr. & Mrs. at the door, though. It was Cluster, seeming to float like a water lily even with chubby little Blue Moon strapped onto her back, asleep. And that was the fifth strange thing of the day. She’d never come to our house before.

    “Why, hello, you must be Cluster,” said Ma. “How lovely to meet you. Come on in.” Ma flashed me her don’t-be-rude look, and I realized I was blocking the way. I moved aside. Cluster floated into the kitchen.

    “Wanna play with us?” piped Barbie from the TV tray where she sat playing rummy with Grum.

    “Do you have any computer games?” Cluster said, looking wistfully toward the crappy old Commodore 64 in the corner. Jed had bought it and kept it going. Now when we turned it on, the screen just said READY followed by a blinking block. And that was all.

    “Not at the moment,” I said.

    Pa muted the TV and sat up, buttoning his shirt. “How are your fine parents this fine evening, young lady? I hope they aren’t indisposed healthwise.” The four empty beer cans that just a moment ago had decorated the coffee table had now magically disappeared. Pa seemed quite the fine fellow. Like someone who would never dream of calling anyone’s parents whacked-out yippie-hippie-doo-da-dopeheads his kids should stay away from.

    “Marigold and Goldenrod are well disposed,” said Cluster, handing me the goat cheese in a recycled tofu container. “Thank you for asking. They sent Blue Moon and myself for the eggs because they’re . . . busy.”

    “Busy doing what?” I said. It didn’t occur to me that I shouldn’t have, until all eyes in the room laser beamed holes in my head. The mouths opened to spit fire at me too. I threw up my hands and yelled, “Sheesh, sorry!”

    At that Blue Moon woke up and howled. Cluster forgave me with a nod, gave her regrets to Barbie on the card game, and took off like dandelion fluff in a high wind. We heard Blue Moon until his wails faded with distance.

    “What do you suppose is ailing that baby?” said Grum. “It couldn’t be colic, could it? His mother is so careful about her diet.”

    “Don’t you mean about his diet?” Pa said.

    “No, Marigold breast-feeds,” Ma said. Pa turned red and cranked up the TV volume.

    “The baby must be teething, then,” said Grum.

    “Like Sebby,” Barbie threw in, getting quite the laugh out of all except the one person who was glaring. Which was me.

    I know this may seem entirely coincidental, but at that very moment a bunch of little knives stabbed inside my stomach. It was all I could do not to wail like Blue Moon.

    “You think it’s funny to have four toothaches and all kinds of growing pains and a bunch of little knives stabbing in your stomach?” I doubled over with the cramps and started to cry. That was proof of my sincere misery. I can’t fake cry, and to be honest I would never even want to.

    Ma got up from the sewing machine and came running to my side. She soothed me and forced the pink chalk medicine down my throat and tucked me in to bed. To help me sleep I held a pebble in my hand next to my cheek, the smooth greenish oval with dark specks that I’d found on the beach once when the whole family went camping at Lake Exton—fishing, swimming, playing Crazy Eights half the night under the gas lantern with bugs flying around it. Those were days to remember.

4

    Friday morning instead of her typical “Up’n at ’em, Seb, chickens waiting, don’t forget to close the doors,” Ma’s first words to me were, “Honey, are you all right? Do you need to stay home in bed today? Grum will nurse you.”

    When she put it that way, the aches and pains in my body hardly made me want to wail at all. I could live with them. Because my chances of having an okay day were way better out of