Read Rosie for Free Online Page B

drinking, for instance—as if there were no tomorrow. Which there very well might not be. Elizabeth stared wistfully at Rosie’s bicycle. In this morning’s paper, Jerry Brown had likened the arms race to a bunch of small boys standing in a basement, knee-deep in kerosene, bragging about how many matches each of them had.
    â€œLike what, Elizabeth?”
    Oh. You still here? “Like, I use lines on Rosie that used to drive me crazy when my mother used them on me. Like ‘matters of principle.’ Or ‘I’m so mad I can’t see straight,’ or ‘I’m so mad I’m seeing red.’ And little mannerisms: sometimes I’ll watch myself do something she used to do, rub my nose a certain way when I’m nervous, or rub my eyes with a thumb and forefinger when someone is getting on my nerves while making this little sniffly sound—as soon as I notice I’m doing it, my heart stops.”
    â€œYeah, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. When will Rosie be home?”
    â€œAny minute.” God willing, she’s still alive, every distant siren might ... “Shall we have one more drink?”
    â€œOh, let’s, dammit,” Rae beamed. Rae beamed a lot. “Do you like to go to movies?”
    â€œIt’s my only amusement. Well, besides books, and—”
    â€œOh, me, too. I figure we’ll be inseparable.”
    They got to their feet and walked inside just as the phone rang.
    â€œIt’s him, it’s him!” Rae shouted. Elizabeth laughed and cracked her hipbone on the corner of the hutch in the dining room.
    â€œHello?” she asked, picking up the phone.
    â€œHi, Mama. I’m playing at my new friend’s house.”
    â€œGood. What’s her name?”
    â€œSharon Thackery.”
    â€œWhy are you whispering?”
    â€œBecause she’s standing right here.”
    Rosie’s first day back at school had been all her good dreams come true: she hadn’t farted green bubbles. One kid joyously told Mrs. Gravinski that Rosie was the smartest kid in the class, another volunteered that she was the class clown. The smell of chalk dust on blackboard erasers excited and reassured her. The morning passed in a flash.
    Recess was a whole new ball game; no more taunts of “Kindergarten baby, born in the gravy.” Now Rosie and her class-mates had the kindergarten babies to lord it over.
    Rosie won at two-square more often than anyone else; the boing of the red rubber ball jazzed her, and she exhibited a sadistic competence. But the new girl, Sharon Thackery, was almost as good.
    When the whistle blew ending recess and class resumed, it turned out that Sharon Thackery was almost as good at reading and writing. Rosie eyed her fretfully, eyed the long thick brown braids, tied with purple ribbons, wanted long brown braids more than she’d ever wanted anything before, and wanting them so badly made her stomach buckle, made it blush in misery, and in her mind’s eye she watched herself hack Sharon’s off with scissors, saw herself with long brown braids. “Rosie! Rosie!”
    â€œPssst,” hissed Sharon Thackery, in the seat beside her.
    â€œRosie,” Mrs. Gravinsky said again. Rosie jerked, looked at the blackboard—A a B b C c—as if it were The Revelation. Some of the kids giggled, and Rosie turned red.
    â€œI could read when I was four,” Sharon said to Rosie after the lunch bell rang.
    â€œBig deal. I could read when I was three.”
    â€œLiar.”
    â€œOh, yeah?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œYou can ask my mother.” They sat at their desks, taking Saran-wrapped food out of their lunch boxes. Rosie’s exuded afaint air of rust, banana, musty sweet decay, and a hint of grapes. Sharon’s was new. Her mother had cut her sandwich the right way, so that the halves were triangles. Sharon’s apple looked like Snow White’s. Rosie’s had been cut into