Read The Mighty Miss Malone for Free Online Page A

for rubbing Mrs. Needham out without getting caught!”
    “No, Clarice. Second place was to teach me a lesson. I won’t even mind if Mrs. Needham gives me a B plus or two. I’m sure your essay was much better.”
    Clarice stopped and looked at me. “Deza Malone. Thank you very much!”
    I pulled her along, anxious to get home and talk to Mother.
    “What’s in the bag?”
    I wanted so much to tell Clarice everything and show her the beautiful clothes, but I
had
promised.
    “Oh, this. It’s just some papers and a few things that—”
    Thank goodness we were walking past Himelhoch’s. Clarice pointed at the window and said, “That dress is so horrible I wouldn’t even wear it to a stoning of Dolly Peaches.”
    Maybe Mother would let me give Clarice my other dress, the one I wear to church. It has a lot less patches than the one Clarice wears now.
    We reached Clarice’s house and hugged.
    She said, “Only one more day, Deza. I’m really going to miss school and Mrs. Needham. Even if she gave you the wrong grade.”
    I had to tell Clarice, “Mrs. Needham said she’s going to tutor us after school and on weekends next year!”
    Clarice said, “
Really
!”
    I said, “Really.”
    Clarice walked up on her porch and turned around to wave.
    At the same time, we both held up two fingers and made our special sign.
    Still two girls sharing one heart.
    I ran the rest of the way home.
    “Mother! Mother!”
    “Hey, sis. You forget it’s the end of the month?”
    I
had
forgotten, Mother would be waiting in line for the food they gave away at the mission.
    Jimmie was sitting on the couch with a pencil and a couple of pieces of paper.
    “What are you doing?”
    “This? Just drawing the fight. And making plans.”
    Jimmie’s plans were mostly about murdering whoever was the latest bully in his life. It’s lucky he’s kind of lazy. If he followed through with any of these plans I’d get to wear the new dress and shoes to watch Jimmie take that long walk to Old Sparky.
    I stuck out my hand. “Let me see.”
    As good a singer as Jimmie is, he’s just as bad a picture drawer.
    The first page showed a man in shorts with boxing gloves on. He had “MS GERM” written across his chest. By his feet was a head that was frowning. Next to him was a man with “JOE” written across his chest. He had a huge smile and was holding his arms above his head. He was wearing boxing glovesand was waving a flag that was probably a American flag, even though it only had two stars and three stripes.

    Jimmie said, “See, that’s what’s going to happen on the seventeenth. Joe Louis is gonna knock Max Smelling’s head off.”
    I rolled my eyes. If I heard one more thing about that ridiculous, worthless fight I’d lose my mind.
    I looked at the other drawing. This plan was just as horrible. This picture showed three people and what looked like the biggest Hershey’s Kiss in the world. For some reason there was a big cloud raining down on the kiss.

    The first person in the plan was a boy with his arms spread wide. I knew it was Jimmie. In his pictures he always draws himself as big, and bumpy with muscles. In his hand was a box of something that had “NITULS” written across the front of it. He’d drawn lines from the nituls that pointed at the giant Hershey’s Kiss.
    On the other side of the Hershey’s Kiss was a boy who was standing with
his
arms spread. This had to be Dolly Peaches because of all the teeth the boy had.
    The third person in the plan was me. I was holding something with “BIG BOOK” written on it and had a gigantic toe.
    I’m usually the only one who can figure out what Jimmie’s plans mean, but not this one.
    I said, “OK, it’s you, Dolly Peaches and me, right?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And Dolly’s standing up but he’s dead, right?”
    “Oh, yeah! That’s a picture of the exact second Dolly starts pushing up daisies!”
    I pointed at the huge Hershey’s Kiss. “Why is this chocolate here?”
    “Naw,