Read Online Addison Addley and the Things That Aren't There by Melody DeFields McMillan - Free Book Online Page A

been kidney beans. With my mom you never know.
    â€œWhat’s the big rush?” I asked as I watched her throw another piece into the frying pan.
    â€œIt’s the big astronomy event today,” she said between gulps of organic papaya juice.
    Now, I might not know much about science, but I was pretty sure that the stars came out at night, not at eight o’clock in the morning.
    â€œAh, Mom...I think that maybe you’ve got your times mixed up,” I offered helpfully. Mom sometimes gets confused. I remember once when she showed up at the baseball field with five dozen carob chip and apple muffins. That was really nice of her and all, but completely unnecessary. Our team wasn’t even playing that day. It was the firefighters’ guinea pig races instead. I guess I forgot to mention to her that our tournament had been postponed. The firefightersliked the muffins though. I think the guinea pigs did too. If we ever have a fire, I bet the trucks will get to our house really fast.
    Mom looked flushed for a minute, as if she actually believed me for once, but then she suddenly remembered.
    â€œNo, no, no. We’re driving to Williamstown to look at the new observatory. We’re eating lunch at the Galaxy restaurant. Then we’re having a meeting to discuss the election of officers next month. I would die to be the treasurer.”
    I looked at Mom to see if she was sick. She looked fine but I couldn’t be sure. She’d been trying to keep really busy lately. Maybe she was too busy to think straight. Since she and Dad got divorced four years ago, she had tried at least eight different clubs. First she’d tried belly dancing. Next it was bread making. Then came basket weaving. I guess that was so she’d have something to put the bread in. Herb drying, yoga, Japanese gardening, Chinese lantern making and Greek cooking rounded out the list. I had used my calculator to figure out that was two clubs a year. She usually quit after a couple of months, but maybe this one would stick.
    But treasurer? It was a mystery to me why anyone would want to do a job without getting paid, especially a job involving numbers. Come to think of it, I didn’t really get what was so exciting about staring at a bunch of stars.
    â€œWhy do you like looking at stars so much?” I asked as I picked the almonds out of the toast and stuffed them in my pocket. The squirrels would like them better than I did. I had to do my part for animal welfare. I always leave the garage window open a crack just in case the bats need someplace to sleep. Mom’s not real keen on that one. She didn’t really like the toad house I built out of her new bamboo placemats either.
    Mom looked at me like I came from Mars, which I’m sure she hopes to see at the astronomy club.
    â€œHow could you not like looking at the stars?” she asked, shooting me a look that said I must have been adopted. “I love the stars. And I want to be the treasurer because it’s a way of meeting people,” she explained. “I don’t think I stand much of a chance because the only experience I have working with numbers, in an official sense, was when I volunteered with the humane society. I had to collect and record the donations we received for the feed-a-kitten day. I don’t think thatkitten food expenses are in the same category as big telescope expenses, but I’m going to try anyway,” she said happily.
    â€œBesides, you know I love working with numbers,” she added, staring at me in a way that made me feel like I was supposed to share her feelings. I think Mom secretly wanted to be an accountant or some other strange math-loving creature. She was always trying to play little number games with me, like telling me to see if I could balance my bank account before the computer did it for me. She didn’t know that I just kept the money from my paper route in my underwear drawer, between all my