Read The Curious Adventures of Jimmy McGee for Free Online

you."
    Amy and Clarissa had a wonderful day. They found a flat piece of driftwood and laid it across the moat for a drawbridge. "People will have to walk across it," said Amy.
    "There should be water," complained Clarissa.
    "People have to 'magine something," said Amy indignantly.
    "I was only thinking of what you said," Clarissa explained. "I didn't want some Monstrous something to just plain walk across a board and grab Little Lydia."
    "M-m-m," said Amy. "But, come on. We're going to make a little schoolroom, remember? And little kids to sit in little sand chairs ... remember?"
    "Yes," said Clarissa.
    They moved down to the part of the sand town where they had built a little sand school, with desks, but no children in it yet. But Amy said, "Ooooh!"
    "What?" asked Clarissa.
    "Look how dark it's getting. There's going to be a squall!" said Amy. "We'd better gather up our toys and towels."
    Amy's mother came to the top of the twenty-six steps and said, "Children, come in! There's going to be a squall, I think."
    Amy handed her things to Clarissa and said, "Hold mine for a minute. I want to show Little Lydia a big wave. She's always lying there on her couch in her castle. So far she's never even seen a huge wave. We won't go very close..."
    Amy ran as close to the water as was safe, she thought. She held Little Lydia in her outstretched hands. "See? Little Lydia? Monstrous big wave!"
    And this wave
was
truly Monstrous. Amy backed off in a hurry. In doing so, she dropped Little Lydia, and the big wave rolled in and grabbed her and tossed her around in its lacy froth and rolled back to sea, where it began to gather force for the next big splash on the beach.
    But Little Lydia was gone! She was not riding in on the next, or the next wave. No sign of her. The tide was turning, going out, the waves receding and leaving no Little Lydia behind. She was gone.
    Amy and Clarissa stood there by Little Lydia's castle. Somehow, Amy thought, Monstrous may

    have a kind heart and whisk her back over the sand to her home? No. Not so. They went up to the bench at the top of the stairs, where they sat in stunned silence.
    Mama came out to see that Amy and Clarissa were coming up to The Bizzy Bee. "No need to come in now," she said, "if you don't want to. This is a funny storm." Half the sky, far away, was still sunny. The other half, this side, was still the deep dark purple the sky gets before a storm. "I think the storm will bypass us," she said, and she went back inside The Bizzy Bee. "No need to run around closing windows, anyway."
    And this was true, for now the sun burst through the dark clouds and it was as though the squall had never been around these parts ever. Except that now they did not have Little Lydia. She was riding the waves somewhere. As they wiped the sand off their feet, tears crept down Amy's cheek. They talked about Monstrous.
    Jimmy McGee zoomied back from his fruitless search at this moment. He had not had the good fortune to track down a single thunderstorm where it might have been possible for him to catch his treasured bolts. No thunderbolt, no lightning bolt yet in his special strong box. He sat down in his doorway and listened to the conversation taking place on the little bench at the top of the stairs.
    Amy and Clarissa looked woebegone, but talked excitedly as people do when an out-of-the-ordinary event has taken place. Amy was acting something out, waving her arms about, holding a pretend something in her little hands, then stretching them out for something to where, and for what? Now and then she wiped her eyes. Clarissa handed her her towel to wipe them.
    Jimmy McGee listened carefully. He took off his hat and put the little safety bolt box into one of his back vaults, its special place when it was not in his hat or his bombazine bag. He put his hat back on, returned to his "front porch," and from behind its lacy curtains heard this:
AMY: Poor Little Lydia! Lost! Drowned!
    CLARISSA: Maybe we'll find her