The Pool Party Read Online Free PDF Page A

asked. He wiped his hands on a greasy rag.
    “My inner tube ripped,” he answered.
    “Ripped!” he said. “After you and Alex decked it out?”
    A cloud of sadness swept across Rudy’s face. The cloud leaked a tear from the corner of Rudy’s eyes.
    Father examined the inner tube. He stuck his whole arm into the rip. It was beyond repair.
    “Hmmm,” he mumbled, hand on his chin. “I got an idea. You come back in five minutes.”
    Rudy went inside to wash his hands and face and pop a slice of cake into his mouth. When he returned, he was staring at the biggest inner tube in his neighborhood, if not all of Fresno.
    “What do you think? Pretty
bad, qué no?
” Father smiled, an air pump in his hands. He was sweaty from pumping, tired, and breathing hard.
    “
Papi,
it’s great.” A happy Rudy beamed. Rudy rolled the huge inner tube around the front yard and, with the neighbor kids watching, bounced on it until he landed on his head. Then his mom called him to dinner.
    That night over dinner, the family talked about the party. Mother asked three times, “
Quién es
Tiffany Perez?” and three times Rudy mumbled with his mouth full, “She’s just a girl at school. Pass the
papas.
”
    Estela, though, volunteered more information. “She’s a really rich girl. Her brother was in my English class last year.”
    “Is she a good girl?” Mother asked. She was always concerned about her children’s friends.
    “Rich?” Father asked, pouring a wide river of chile on his
frijoles.
“I wonder if I ever cut their lawn before. Do you know their address?”
    “They live on The Bluffs.”
    “That’s a rich
familia,
” Father answered.Father snapped his fingers. “In fact, I got a mowing job over there. The Ramirez family.”
    “Mindy Ramirez?” Estela asked. “She’s rich too. Her brother’s in my math class. He’s dumb but cute.”
    “
Pues,
could be the same family. That house is on
los
Bluffs
también.
” Father fumbled through his pockets for a scrap of paper. He held it under the light and read 1356 The Bluffs.
    “That’s Mindy’s address,” Estela confirmed. “Her brother is cute!”
    “I know Mindy,” Rudy said, his mouth full. “She’s in my class. I lent her a quarter one time, and she never paid me back.”
    Grandfather, who was busily eating dinner, said, “That’s how the rich get rich. Little quarters add up. Why, back in the fifties, we had …”
    Grandfather told a story of a young man who arrived from Greece with only a quarter, a quarter that he found in a soda machine on board the ship. According toGrandfather, the man transformed that quarter into a multimillion-dollar empire.
    “I’ll have to get my quarter back,” Rudy said, sipping his Kool-Aid. “Maybe I can become rich too.”
    Next morning the family, including an embarrassed Estela, climbed into the Oldsmobile, now transformed, as Father joked, into the Lawnmobile. They had six lawns to cut that day, and Father needed all their help.
    “Dad, don’t make me do this,” Estela begged from the backseat. Estela hid her face in her hands. “I don’t want Eric Ramirez, the cutest boy at my school, to see me working. It’s too embarrassing!”
    “Nobody will say anything,” Father said. He shifted the car into reverse and, looking over his shoulder, backed up their large dinosaur of a car. He ran over the curb, jostling the passengers and the equipment in the trunk.
    “Work is honorable,” Grandfather said after a while. He took a stick of gum and toreit in half. He handed each of his grandchildren a piece. “I’ve been honorable all my life.
Mira,
look at my hands.
Puro honor!
” His hands were rough as bark, with huge veins riding the surface of his skin.
    Estela hid her face even deeper into her hands. She was hating life at that moment.
    They did the first two lawns, and then took a break under a tree in Figarden, a rich suburb. Then they cut three more lawns and saved the Ramirez house for last. By then,