Read Online Eggplant Alley (9781593731410) by D. Cataneo - Free Book Online

is terrible.”
    â€œYeah,” said Nicky, who in truth desperately wanted to stay and watch the two hippies get beaten by the hard hats—Them pummeled by Us.
    â€œMom, please walk slow. Because of my tooth.”
    Two other hard hats surrounded the short, long-haired boy. The boy blubbered, “Wait, now wait …”
    One construction man said, “So, get him, Bill.”
    Bill clasped a large hand around the short boy’s skinny throat. A sandal slipped off. The boy’s long hair swung wildly. Bill growled through clenched teeth, “Hey, Tiny Tim, what do you call this? What’s this supposed to mean?”
    Nicky saw what was eating the hard hats. It was the boy’s jeans. Sewn onto the seat of the jeans was an American flag. The flag was affixed squarely in the center of the boy’s bony butt. As if the implication of this weren’t enough, the American flag was upside down.
    â€œI fought under this flag. I saw good buddies die for this flag,” Bill said in a low, angry voice.
    Bill folded the boy onto the pavement. He tried to tear the flag from the pants, but the flag was sewn on tight. It didn’t budge. Bill yanked hard on the flag. This merely lifted the short boy, flag still attached to his pants, off the pavement. Bill tried to shake the flag loose. His construction hat fell off and clattered on the street.
    Before Mom led him around the corner, Nicky looked back. Bill had a boot planted on the boy’s back and was pulling on the flag with two hands. Nicky heard a ripping sound.
    â€œMom,” Nicky said as they walked toward the bus. “Mrs. Furbish really scares me.”

A Big Sneeze
11
    N icky awoke with a premonition, or maybe it was a lingering dream. Something big was coming today. He just knew it. It was more than a hunch. It was a certainty. You know the tickle you get in your nose just before a big sneeze? Nicky woke up with that kind of tickle in his soul. He sensed it.
    Something big.
    A change.
    For the better.
    â€œSo this is what it’s like to be Mrs. Furbish,” Nicky thought, dropping out of bed to face this historic Saturday.
    The idea stuck in his brain like a catchy tune. At breakfast Nicky pestered Mom to turn on the radio news. She had switched off the news for good after Roy went away. Nicky thought the major development might make the radio. Maybe North Vietnam surrendered. Maybe the boiler at St. Peter’s Elementary exploded and blew the place sky-high. Maybe the Yankees traded for Willie Mays.
    Mom turned on the radio to the all-news station. Typewriters clacked in the background while a man read the latest bulletins. Nicky was fairly sure the typewriter noise came from a sound effects tape. The radio guy told a story about a pig that thwarteda bank robbery in Missouri. Then came the story of an actress with a new husband, her eighth. Then came the tally of the week’s Vietnam War casualties. The numbers were 217 Americans killed, 1,271 wounded, and Mom shivered in the warm kitchen. It was like hearing of a plane crash, when your loved one is up in a plane. Nicky knew Mom was thinking of 217 Roys and 217 mothers. That’s the kind of person Mom was.
    Mom cracked five eggs into the frying pan when she needed two. The announcer went on to say that the North Vietnamese and Vietcong dead totaled 1,566.
    Nicky said, “Hey, Mom, not bad, right? We won, fifteen hundred and sixty-six to two hundred seventeen. I wish the Yankees would win like that.”
    Mom switched off the radio.
    â€œMom, don’t worry,” Nicky said. “He’s a file clerk.”
    Nicky gobbled two of the eggs and mashed up the other three. He was happy. He had a promise to carry into the day. A sweet little treasure in the back pocket of his brain. Something to look forward to. It was like having a Yum-E-Cakes cream pie tucked into your lunch bag, only better.
    Dad walked into the kitchen, wearing his nylon jacket, jangling