Read Online Jack on the Tracks by Jack Gantos - Free Book Online

On the way out of the house he said, “Maybe after the single-dollar bills there will be five-dollar bills, then tens, then twenties, then hundreds …” I stopped him. “Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched,” I warned him, sounding like my father.
    When we arrived at the tree Pete gasped and dropped to his knees. “It died!” he shouted. “All its leaves fell off.” He began to cry.
    “But dollar bills are still left on the bare branches,” I pointed out.
    “Why’d it die?” he blubbered. “I loved this tree.”
    “It’s not dead,” I said, putting my arm around his shoulders. “It’s just that winter is coming. The penny tree has a short growing season. You know, like oranges and limes.”
    Pete wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Then he thought about what I’d said. He thought about it for so long that I knew I was in trouble.
    “You mean it will return next summer?” he asked.
    “Yes,” I said. “Of course it will.”
    “That is so cool!” he shouted. “I’ll be rich all over again.”
    He was ripping the dollar bills off the tree as I stood up and slowly walked back to my room. I shook my piggy bank. It was empty. I better start saving now, I thought. That kid’s generous imagination is going to cost me every red cent I can get my hands on.



From the Grave
    H alloween didn’t wait until dark to be spooky. It was a rainy Saturday morning and Pete and I were watching a
Hogan’s Heroes
rerun on TV. Sergeant Carter had just set off explosives in an important Nazi railroad tunnel and was now dodging German patrols when suddenly a local TV announcer came on and said, “We interrupt this program to bring you an important news flash from the Dade County Sheriff’s Department.” But before he could deliver the news, there was a big bang and the house jumped as if hit by a truck. Mom screamed in the laundry room, and on television the announcer’s face began to cloud over with wisps of white smoke that seemed to be leaking out of his shirt collar as if he were the devil’s newscaster. Then the picture vanished, but the smoke stayed and gathered into a cloud as dark and thick as the ones above our house. I leapt forward and yanked the plug out of the wall just as Mom dashed into the room.
    “We’ve been hit by lightning,” she said breathlessly.
    “The TV blew up!” Pete shouted, pointing at the smoke that was seeping, like an escaping ghost, out of the speaker at the front of the set. “We were going to get special news and it blew.”
    “Well, they were probably going to warn us of a lightning storm,” Mom said. “I hope nothing else got zapped.” She left the room to check.
    I didn’t think the Sheriff’s Department would warn us about lightning storms. It had to be something else. Something menacing, like a runaway train full of deadly nerve gas, or a foreign invasion, but now we wouldn’t know. I hopped up and looked out the window to see if UFO’s were landing, or if a tidal wave was about to squish us like a giant hand. But I didn’t spot anything abnormal, so I patrolled from window to window to see if the outside of the house was on fire from the lightning strike. I hoped it wasn’t. I had big, all-day Halloween plans. Tack and I were going water skiing. His older brother, Jock, who Tack called Jock Itch, had bought a used car and said he would take us with him. I had never water-skied before and wanted to try it, but since it was storming out I knew Mom wouldn’t let me go. I peered through the back window, up at the sky. The clouds were still heavy and gray as stones, but they were breaking up. The sun was peeking through the cracks and the rain had stopped. Just then there was a knock at the door.
    “That’s for me,” I yelled. I sprinted down the hall, across the living room, and whipped the door open. It was orange-haired Miss Fry and she thrust Miss Kitty II right up into my face. I knew this was going to be another car problem. Miss Kitty II loved