Read Online Fifteen by Beverly Cleary - Free Book Online Page A

the truck. Jane felt a thrill of pleasure just to be riding beside him. Of course, the Doggie Diner truck, with the back filled with packages of horsemeat, wasn’t exactly the same as a convertible; but since Stan was the driver she did not care.
    â€œIs Joey as bad as Sandra?” Stan asked. “She’s a handful.”
    â€œNo, Joey’s different,” said Jane. “He’s medium-hard to sit with, but not like Sandra. It’s just that he’s three years old and into everything, so hetakes a lot of chasing. His mother doesn’t keep anything around that he can hurt, and that helps. She’s not like some mothers who can’t make their children mind but expect a sitter to be able to. I just have to keep pulling him out of drawers and off the backs of chairs and things. Sometimes I can get him interested in trying to fill a shoe box with worms he digs out of the yard with an old tablespoon, and that keeps him busy. Or I can always read him The Night Before Christmas .”
    Stan laughed. “In August?”
    â€œOh, yes,” answered Jane. “It’s his favorite book.”
    Stan stopped the truck in front of the Dithridges’, one of the new houses in a long row on a straight street. Few of the houses had lawns, but most of them had new shrubs too small to hide the foundations, and every house had at least one tree, two or three feet high, planted in the space that would someday be lawn. On the sidewalk in front of nearly every house was a little wagon or tricycle. Farther on down the street a bulldozer roared and a cement truck rumbled.
    Stan turned to Jane and grinned at her. “I like that yellow dress on you,” he said. “You were wearing it that day when you were with Sandra,and you looked cute with your hair all mussed up.”
    Jane felt herself blush with pleasure. Stan had remembered what she was wearing the first time they met! This was most significant. Now he would surely ask her for a date.
    â€œHi!” Little Joey Dithridge came running out of the house to meet Jane.
    â€œThanks a lot, Stan,” she said, reluctantly opening the door of the truck. If they had been riding in a car, she would have waited for him to go around and open the door for her, but riding in a truck was different.
    â€œI’ll see you soon.” Stan started the truck. “Don’t let Joey wear you out.”
    â€œGood-bye,” called Jane wistfully, as Joey joyfully tackled her around the knees. “Hi, Joey.”
    â€œI’m going to chop you up in a million pieces!” cried Joey.
    Jane laughed. “No, you won’t,” she answered, “because I’m bigger and I’ll chop you up in a billion pieces first.” This was the way she and Joey always greeted each other. Joey laughed delightedly while Jane absentmindedly pried him loose from her knees. So Stan liked her in the yellow dress! But he had not asked her for another date.He had said he would see her soon. Soon. Jane did not like the word. It could mean anything—an hour or a week or a month. Men were so exasperating.
    But Stan did see Jane soon. He saw her the very next day; he came by for a few minutes before he went to work and stayed long enough to drink a Coke. Friday evening he telephoned to ask her to go to the movies again on Saturday. When Jane informed her mother and father that she was going to the movies with Stan again, she noticed her father raise his eyebrows ever so slightly, and an expression (could it be disapproval?) crossed her mother’s face. They did not object, but Jane was left with a feeling of uneasiness. She hoped they would not start being stuffy and giving her lectures about seeing too much of Stan (“He’s a nice boy, but…” “Really, Jane, I think you are a little young…”) and all that sort of thing—not when everything was going so beautifully. Oh, please, please don’t spoil it all, thought