The Kingdom of Kevin Malone Read Online Free PDF Page B

came out again and went back in and so it went. You could always tell what stage things were at. When her mom was home, Claudia got skinny and hyper and completely scatterbrained from trying to take care of everything and make her mom happy.
    When her mom was away, Claudia spent all her time in front of the TV, eating. She got fat and slow and sort of regressed.
    Now here she was walking into the drugstore wearing those Indian pants with the dropped seat and a huge droopy sweater; so her mom was in the dryer, and Claudia was out to lunch. Why had Rachel brought her?
    â€œHere’s your shoes,” Rachel said, clunking them down on the table. She slung herself into the booth across from me, and Claudia shoved in beside her.
    Claudia looked sort of witchy-white, and her black hair was wisping out of its barrettes as usual. Her eyes had that heavy-lidded, TVed-out look, and she was carrying—I could barely believe this—a purse made of black-and-white plush in the shape of a dog, which she put on the table so that nobody could possibly miss it.
    â€œThanks,” I told Rachel, handing over her skates and putting my shoes down where they wouldn’t be sharing the plastic surface with that purse. Suddenly Kevin and Sebbian and the Bone Men all seemed very far away.
    Claudia scoped out my plate. “Are you gonna eat all those fries, Amy?” she said.
    â€œYou can take what you want,” I said, “as long as you don’t try to feed them to your purse.”
    â€œIt’s a PursePet,” Claudia said, snagging herself a couple of greasy potato wedges. “From the Plush Jungle. They’ve got neat stuff there.”
    â€œSo what’s up?” Rachel said, tossing her hair impatiently. I took a deep breath and I told them what was up. Claudia said, “God, it sounds like The Night of the Living Dead! ” She hugged her purse anxiously.
    Rachel whistled. “That’s whack! Are you getting ready for a career in Hollywood?”
    The way she said it, it dawned on me that Rachel was jealous. She had the looks for TV, but I was moving to Los Angeles. She’d been getting weird with me ever since I’d told her about the move. Now I wished I’d never said anything, about that or about the Fayre Farre. Nobody knows how to cut you down like your own best friend.
    Claudia asked, “Is Kevin cute?”
    â€œVery,” I said. “You’d love him, Claudia.”
    Rachel leaned over the table toward me. “So your old rose pin is the key to this magic land? Let’s see it.”
    I put the rhinestone rose on the table between us. We looked at it. Rachel poked it with one gnawed-nail fingertip and sat back with a sigh. “It must be really tough, having your cousin die and all.”
    So she thought I was crazy, that I had cracked under the strain. No telling what Claudia thought. She rested her chin on her folded arms, practically lying on the tabletop, and stared at the pin.
    â€œWhat are you going to do, Claudia,” I said. “Eat it?”
    â€œOf course not,” she answered in a wounded tone. “Don’t be cranky, Amy. It’s bad for your digestion to be in a crummy mood while you’re eating.”
    I didn’t feel crummy, I felt sullen and tired and let down. “I’m not eating,” I said. “I’m finished.”
    Claudia said sympathetically, “So you never got to hear the prophecy because the guy died. But the prophecy is key. I mean, there’s always a prophecy in those books. You’ll have to go back to the Fayre Farre to find out what it says about you.”
    Rachel glanced up from gnawing the cuticle of her thumbnail. “You know, there is always a prophecy, usually in the form of awful poetry. Did this boy say any poetry to you?”
    The idea of Kevin speaking poetry even by accident made me laugh until I hiccuped. I even forgot to wonder what was going on here, that Rachel and