The Lesson Read Online Free PDF

Edith Fisher could remain in completecharge of her life—and her sons—and didn’t have to change anything to suit a man. Jimmy loved his mother, but he wasn’t blind to her faults. He remembered how henpecked his own father had been. Ironic for a man who had raised chickens and sold eggs for a living.
    “Whose buggy is this?” Jimmy said. He recognized his friends’ buggies because they had customized the interiors: fuzzy dice hanging down from the rearview mirror, red shag carpet, a boom box. But this buggy looked pretty plain, stark. Clearly, an adult’s.
    “Bishop’s.” Hank turned the fiberboard right side up. “WELL, LOOKY THERE! I had it upside down.”
    “I thought the bishop’s accident happened months ago.”
    “It did, but it’s hunting season, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’ve been needing to spend my time at Blue Lake Pond. Under my watch, many a goose has flapped its last over that lake.”
    It was always hunting season in Hank Lapp’s mind. “Oooo-eee! I’ll bet Bishop Elmo’s breathing down your neck to get it fixed.”
    Hank glared at Jimmy, and that wasn’t a pretty sight. He had one eye that wandered and when he tried to glare, it gave him a frantic, wild-eyed look. Crazy as a loon. “BOY, DON’T YOU HAVE SOMEPLACE YOU NEED TO BE?”
    A flash of red down on the road caught Jimmy’s eye. It was M.K., zooming along on her scooter. “I do! There’s M.K.” He started down the hill. Over his shoulder, he tossed, “Talk to you later, Hank.”

    Mary Kate saw Jimmy Fisher running down the driveway to meet her, and considered turning the scooter around and zooming away. She didn’t know what was on his mind, butwhen he kept turning up like he had been doing lately, it usually meant he needed advice or money or both. She was in no mood to be generous with either.
    She hopped off the scooter as the driveway’s incline began, and walked the rest of the way. Doozy ran off to chase a jackrabbit. Poor pup. He tried so often to catch one of those long-eared, long-legged jackrabbits and never could. As M.K. met up with Jimmy, she wiped her forehead with her sleeve. Today was going to be a scorcher.
    “What?” she said flatly.
    Jimmy gave a look of mock offense. “Is that any way to greet your most devoted friend?”
    “I’m in no mood for small talk.” She kept walking. “What do you want?”
    He kept up with her. “Why is everybody so concerned with your mood today?”
    She stopped abruptly. “They’re not. That’s the whole problem. No one is concerned about my mood today or any other day.” She blew air out of her cheeks. “Jimmy, do you ever feel like you’re a horse in a pasture and all you can think about is getting out of the pasture?”
    “No. I feel as if I’m a horse in a race, and I’m in the lead by two stretches. That’s how I feel.”
    She rolled her eyes. The ego of Jimmy Fisher was legendary. “I have just been roped into being the next schoolteacher at Twin Creeks.”
    “What?” Jimmy tilted his head, as if he hadn’t heard her properly. A beat of silence followed. Then another. “You? Of all people, you?”
    And then Jimmy started laughing so hard that M.K. thought he might pass out from a lack of oxygen to the brain. Infuriating! She started marching up the hill.
    Jimmy rushed to catch up with her, gasping to get his laughing fit under control. “I can’t remember a single week going by that Spinster Smucker didn’t end up plunking you in the corner, face against the wall, or making you stay in for recess, or keeping you after school. Not one! Not one single week!” He was overcome with another laughing fit and had to bend over at his knees to wheeze for air. He patted his knees for effect.
    M.K. was disgusted. But what he said was true—she had constantly been in trouble during her years at Twin Creeks School. And it was never her fault! Never. Maybe a few times. She wasn’t sure who was happier on her eighth-grade graduation day: she or Alice