The Life of Ty: Penguin Problems Read Online Free PDF Page B

hand. “C’mon, buddy. Pass ’em over.”
    My stomach tightens.
    His hand stays where it is.
    I scowl and give him the seven pacifiers that were behind my back. Greenie is a hard plastic lump beneath me. So? I don’t look at Dad, because I don’t even want to.
    â€œThank you,” Dad says.
    â€œDon’t throw them away,” I say. “I want to give them to my own children one day.”
    â€œTy,” Dad says wearily. “When you have kids, you can buy them new pacifiers. These are too old.” He tugs on the rubber tip of the blue pacifier, and part of it comes off . What’s left is a ragged hole.
    Dad looks shocked. He stands up straighter and says, “See? If a baby was sucking on that, the baby would have choked.”
    I dig my fingernails into my palms. I would have never ripped off the head of my blue pacifier. Also, I want to touch the torn part. But I can’t. Dad would say no.
    Dad puts all the pacifiers into his pockets, plus the scrap of rubber that used to be part of the blue one. The way he does it says, There. Done .
    What he doesn’t know is that I still have my green one.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    A fter school the next day, Sandra takes me to Piedmont Hospital to visit my best friend, Joseph. Piedmont Hospital is where Teensy Baby Maggie was born, so I know all about it; plus I’ve visited Joseph before. I even have permission to visit Joseph without having a parent with me. Sandra drops me off at the front entrance and says she’ll be back in an hour.
    I wave at the nurses in the Pediatric Ward. They wave back. When I get to room 512, I peek through the crack to see if Joseph’s mom is in there, and when she isn’t, I barge in and go, “Boo!”
    Joseph jumps in his hospital bed and screams like a girl. Or a dolphin. They sound the same.
    â€œHi,” I say, grinning.
    Joseph grins back. “Hi. Do it again.”
    So I go, “ Boo, ” and he screams like a dolphin. We crack up.
    And then we just talk. About gum-by-the-foot, about a mole on one of the nurse’s cheeks, about alligators and how they let their meat rot before eating it. Joseph reads a lot, so he knows all kinds of stuff.
    I tell him about Lexie, and how she was mad at me, but how she isn’t anymore. He tells me his white blood cells are getting better, and I say, “That’s awesome.” I really want him to come back to school.
    When it’s time for me to leave, he says, “You stink, by the way. Like, smelly-stink.”
    I look down at myself. I sniff.
    â€œIt’s okay, though,” he says. “I don’t care.”
    â€œI don’t care, either,” I say. I kind of do and kind of don’t. “I was supposed to take a bath last night, but I didn’t.”
    â€œCool.”
    â€œI’m not going to take one tonight, either. I’m going for an Olympic record.”
    He gives me a thumbs-up and lies back against his pillow. “Cool.”
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    I’m a man of my word and don’t take a bath that night, just like I said. Mom tells me to right after supper, but I hop into bed instead, and then ka-boom! I wake up and it’s Thursday, the day of our field trip! Sharks! Starfish! Beluga whales!
    I wake up so excited, and then whoosh, my excitement gets sucked out of me, like someone sucked it out with a giant Dustbuster. Only not a fun Dustbuster.
    First, I find out that Mom forgot to buy my Lunchable, and that I have to bring a juice box, an apple, chips, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a stupid plastic grocery store bag. When I get mad, she says, “Ty, I hate to break it to you, but the world doesn’t always revolve around you.”
    That makes me madder, and also hurts my feelings, because saying that is like saying I’m acting like a baby, when I’m not.
    Then, at school, Lexie is back to being more friends with Breezie than with me. Breezie’s