Read Camille McPhee Fell Under the Bus for Free Online Page A

But it feels very advanced.” I sniffled. “And he doesn’t want the other kids to throw the balls directly at our heads. But it does happen.”
    “Unbelievable!” my mother said. “Well, I’m going to take you to school on Monday and have a talk with him about this.”
    “Um,” I said. “Okay.”
    So I sat at the kitchen table and read all about laws.And how the basic purpose of a government was to make laws, carry out laws, and decide if laws had been broken. And how equality under the law meant that all people were treated fairly. Which was a nice idea, but I didn’t think that it happened all the time.
    After I finished with social studies, I put my head down on the table.
    “Do you need a break?” my mother asked.
    This made me jump a little, because I hadn’t known she was still in the kitchen.
    “Yes,” I said. “But I don’t want more cheese.”
    “Should we call Aunt Stella in Modesto?” my mother asked.
    “Yes! Yes!” I said, because I loved talking to Aunt Stella. In fact, I loved talking to Aunt Stella in Modesto so much, that the month after Sally moved, I called Aunt Stella thirty-seven times. And talked for over nine hundred minutes. And got banned from using the phone to make long-distance calls ever again. Except in the case of what my parents called a grave emergency.
    My mother dialed my aunt Stella on the kitchen phone and then handed it to me.
    “Aunt Stella! It’s Camille! How’s Modesto?” I asked.
    “Camille, how are you? Does your mother know that you’re calling me?”
    Then something terrible happened. My mother pushed a button and put the call on speakerphone. So Icouldn’t tell Aunt Stella anything personal. I could only tell her things that I could tell my mother.
    “I’m here too, Stella,” my mother said.
    “How’s school?” Aunt Stella asked.
    But before I could say anything about school, my mother started talking about how my teacher was science-centered, extremely challenging, and a promoter of sports violence.
    I stood and listened. And I felt pretty bad. Because I didn’t think Mr. Hawk was a bad teacher. I just would have preferred to learn in my own kitchen.
    I sat down and listened to my mom and Aunt Stella talk. One of the things I liked about Aunt Stella was that she was from California, and that place had an ocean. Where I lived in Idaho there weren’t any oceans. Only lakes. And things called reservoirs that looked like lakes, but they were actually built by people to store water. And while it was common to see people waterskiing in them, if a reservoir ever broke, which could happen, the water would flood towns and kill everybody and their dogs.
    “Camille, are you still there?” Aunt Stella asked.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Well, you and your family are going to have to come visit me,” she said.
    “And drive to the ocean?” I asked.
    I really wanted to wear my swimsuit in the ocean.Because Idaho had dangerous rivers, and streams, and irrigation canals, but none of those things had waves. Just deadly currents.
    “Of course we can drive to the ocean,” Aunt Stella said.
    Then she said she loved me and I said I loved her and my mother hung up the phone. Even though we didn’t have a firm date, thinking about my trip to California made me smile. I now felt good enough to attempt math. I took out my worksheets and looked at them. I was at the point where I had to times everything by nine. Even other nines. I took a deep breath. I found timesing things by nine to be hard work. I tapped my finger to help me count and I scribbled answers. When I finished those, I drank some water. Then I had spelling words. They were all trick words that sounded alike. I didn’t like words like that. I thought maybe the government should have made a law against these kinds of words: threw, through; close, clothes; sure, shore; would, wood .
    My mother looked over my shoulder.
    “You’re studying homophones?” she asked me.
    “I guess,” I said.
    Then my mom