The Son of Someone Famous Read Online Free PDF

don’t have any dogs there?”
    â€œYou can bring Janice,” I said. “I’ll make a reservation at the hotel.”
    After I finished talking with her, my grandfather brought his beer into the living room and sat down opposite me. “So we’re going to have two dinner guests, huh?” he said.
    â€œJanice is just a Siamese cat,” I said.
    â€œYou know, A.J.,” he said, “Christmas wasn’t even celebrated in the early days in New England.”
    â€œIs that right?” I said. I didn’t want to tell him that I’d been sitting right beside him when he’d gone into all that with Late Night Larry. I knew he’d blacked out, the same way Billie Kay sometimes did when she drank too much. I let him finish. Then I said, “I’m sorry I got you into this, Grandpa.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” he said. “Times change. It isn’t 1659 anymore.”
    â€œBut I know you never even liked the original meaning of Christmas,” I said.
    â€œThe original meaning has gone out of Christmas,” he answered. “You said that yourself just a short while ago. Where’s your memory, A.J.? It can mean anything we want it to mean!”
    I laughed. “It’ll mean a lot of work for you.”
    â€œI like to cook,” he said. “Remember, you’re talking to Chuck From Vermont. . . . I’ll tell you something else, A.J.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œI think we ought to have a tree. I think we ought to fix this place up so it looks a little more like Christmas!”
    â€œDo we have the money?” I asked.
    â€œNo, we don’t have the money,” he said.
    â€œI could wire my father for some,” I said.
    â€œNot on your sweet little behind,” my grandfather said. “I’ve got a turkey in the deep freeze.”
    â€œBut we shouldn’t buy a tree.”
    â€œWe won’t. And we won’t cut one down for our own selfish purposes, either. We’ll make a tree from pine branches,” my grandfather said. “And we’ll decorate it ourselves.”
    â€œWhat’ll we use for decorations?” I said.
    â€œWhat do we have the most of around here, A.J.?” I looked at him, puzzled.
    â€œBeer cans, A.J.!” my grandfather laughed. “Empty beer cans!”
    Christmas was a week away.

Notes for a Novel by B.B.B.
    â€œWhere have you been?” Adam asked me a few days before Christmas. “Have you been sick?”
    I was standing by my locker, getting out of my parka. I grabbed my wool muffler and draped it across my face like a veil. “I was asked to join the sheik’s harem,” I said. My Hairgo scab was gradually disappearing, but it was still there. I had covered it with pancake makeup, but on very close inspection there was a thin scar mustache.
    â€œSeriously,” Adam smiled, “how come you missed school this past week?”
    It was all thanks to Aunt Faith, who’d persuaded my mother that the humiliation of going to school in that condition would far outweigh any damage done by missing five days of classes. Reluctantly my mother wrote an excuse for me, declaring I had been felled by flu. I studied my lessons daily in our sun parlor, nursing my wound with skin creams and making dozens of promises to my mother that I would never fool with a depilatory again.
    â€œGo away,” I told Adam as I kept my muffler across my face. “The sheik is a jealous lover. Even now his spies areobserving me.”
    The only person observing me, besides Adam Blessing, was Christine Cutler. Her locker was a few doors from mine.
    â€œHi, Brenda Belle!” she called over. “How are you?”
    Since when had she cared how I was?
    â€œOkay,” I answered.
    Adam was still standing there.
    I told him, “If you must communicate with me, do so by telephone this evening. I cannot risk the sheik’s