Wishin' and Hopin' Read Online Free PDF Page A

younger she looks!”
    At which point I really noticed my mother. Her regular hair had been poufed up into a tall beehive style with a big swirling curl on one side and a French twist in back. Her head looked like a giant Dairy Queen.
    “Hey, Mrs. F,” Chino called over. “Va-va-voom.” Ma waved him away with her hand and said okay, okay, that was enough of that. But for once, she was smiling at Chino instead of frowning at him.
    “Felix, check out her skort,” Simone said.
    “Her what?”
    “Her skort. They’re real popular now. Real modern . Ma, turn around.”
    My mother did as she was told, as if the trip to Hartford had turned her into a zombie or something. She was wearing a skirt in front and Bermuda shorts in back and you could see her veiny legs either way.
    “Well, Felix, what do you think of my new look?” Ma asked timidly.
    I shrugged and looked away. “How should I know?”
    Her smile twitched a little. “Do you think Daddy will like it?”
    “Don’t ask me. Ask him.” What did she have to keep looking at me for? I was my same self. She was the one who was different. I was wishing she hadn’t even entered her stupid Pillsbury Bake-Off.
    “How did you make out today, sweetie?” she asked. “How was school?”
    Instead of answering her, I asked a question of my own. “How come your legs look like blue cheese?”
    Ma turned immediately to Simone. “See! I toldyou this was too short.” Simone said it wasn’t—that I was just being a little jerk.
    “As usual,” Frances added.
    Ma turned back to me. “What did you have for supper, honey?”
    Nothing, I told her. Just a Suicide Coke. “And by the way, I hope you know you have to buy me a new uniform.”
    “A new—”
    “I could have gotten killed, you know. While you were out doing all your shopping.”
    “Gotten killed? What do you mean?”
    “Boiled in oil!” Ma and Simone exchanged confused looks, but Frances made some smart remark about Kentucky Fried Felix. “Oh yeah, Frances the Talking Mule, real funny!” I stuck my tongue out at her, too. Ma hated it when I did that, same as she did when I blew bubbles in my milk with a straw.
    “Cool it there, Dondi,” Chino said, approaching us. And to Ma, “He just had a little accident, Mrs. F. That’s all.”
    “A little accident?” I countered. Like Perry Mason, I walked behind the counter and pointed to Exhibit A: my ruined red clip-on tie, resting atop a bed of greasy paper towels. I looked from my alarmed mother to Annette on the wall above the fryolator, smiling her placid paper smile, listening to her transistor radio. Then I turned back to Ma. I had intended to glare at her but, instead, began to cry.
    “I fried my tie,” I said.
    My sisters burst into peals of laughter.

3
Confession
    T ons of stuff was already happening that week. Saturday was Halloween. (Lonny and I were trick-or-treating in my neighborhood, and then he was sleeping over.) On Tuesday, our school was having our mock election, plus it was the day of the real election and either we’d have our same president still (LBJ) or else Barry Goldwater (AuH 2 0), who was from Arizona. On Thursday, Ma was leaving for California, which, on the map, was right next to Arizona, which, if you drove from therethrough New Mexico, you’d be in Texas where President Johnson was from. And now, sheesh, on top of everything else, Madame had just told us that our class was getting a new student—a girl who had moved here, not just from some place close like Rhode Island but from a foreign country!
    Evgeniya (Zhenya) Vladimirovna Kabakova
    Madame turned away from the name she’d just written on the board and smiled. Could anyone guess from her name which country Zhenya came from?
    Rosalie’s hand went up. “Poland?” Madame shook her head.
    I put my hand up next. Figuring “Kabakova” sounded kind of like “capicola,” I guessed Italy. Madame said, “No, heh heh heh, Zhenya is not une jeune fille italienne