Read Online Journey to an 800 Number by E.L. Konigsburg - Free Book Online Page A

drank Coke or water. His fever seemed to go down after lunch, but it shot back up about four o’clock, and I kept sponging him off with cool wet washcloths.
    When Iago brought me my supper about seven, I sat out on the camper step and asked him to join me, but he told me that he had to hurry back because he had to take Manuelo his supper, too, since they were short-handed in their booth. I ate alone there on the step, sniffing the air and deciding that although it was full of peculiar smells and particulates, it had a quality that sure
felt
healthy.
    I heard a knock on the camper door about eleven. It was Manuelo. He laid a pile of bills on top of the counter, reached in his pocket for some change, and said, “Sixty-seven twenty-five. I kept ten bucks in bills and coins to make change.”
    “How can you have twenty-five cents? I thought the rides were a dollar or a dollar fifty. The money should be in multiples of fifty cents.”
    “You thinking I cheated you?”
    “I was just …”
    “The truth is that you were cheated.”
    “I didn’t mean …”
    “But I didn’t cheat you. Some gringo accused me of giving him wrong change, and I made it up to him even though I’m not at fault. In this business, man, you learn not to fight over two bits. You lose good will to fight in front of the customers.”
    “Listen, Manuelo, I didn’t mean for you to think that …”
    “You didn’t mean for me to think what, man?”
    “I didn’t mean for you to think that I thought you were cheating.”
    “Sure, man.”
    “It’s just that I have this rather good ability in math.”
    “Sure, man.”
    “Listen, Manuelo …”
    “No, you listen,” he said. “I’m not sure I like you, but I’ll tell you this. I love Woody. And so does Mama and Iago and Jesus and Emmy, too. We’ve loved him all the years we been coming to Tulsa. And we gonna continue to do for you because we’re really doing for Woody, and we’re not gonna let him down.” He picked up my supper dishes. “I’ll take these back to Mama. You tell Woody that Ahmed was a good boy today, and he’s all settled for the night.”
    “I’ll tell him,” I said. “And would you please tell Mama Rosita thanks for the supper? Would you tell her that I said it was real good.” He turned to leave. “Would you also please tell her that?”
    “I’ll tell her,” he said and left.
    After he left I told myself that Manuelo was just pretty touchy and shouldn’t have jumped to any conclusions, and I told myself it was not my fault if I was rapid-fire in arithmetic, and after he left I hated him. Or me. I guess it was me I hated, but I hated him for making me.
    Father’s fever broke that night, and by morning he awoke smiling and talked about getting up and getting going. I let him try, but, of course, he couldn’t. He sat halfway up and sank back down. “I’m as weak as May wine,” he said.
    “Just lie there,” I said. “Would you like to have solid food today?”
    “No, Bo,” he said. “I don’t feel strong enough to chew.”
    “How about a mashed potato?”
    “No, thanks,” he said. And he was asleep again in five seconds.
    Mama Rosita appeared again, and I told her that Father’s health seemed to be improving, and she told me that it was time to change the sheets, and I told her that I couldn’t find any more clean ones, and I didn’t know what we would be changing them to, and she told me that she would send Iago over to baby-sit with Father and that I should take the sheets to the laundromat and wash them. I told her sure. I didn’t have any idea how to do laundry. I didn’t explain that laundry was one of the services we got for living on the Fortnum campus, and shedidn’t ask. I wished she would have asked, but she didn’t. She just asked me if I had quarters, and I told her that I did, that Manuelo had given them to me, and I looked at her out of the corner of my eye so that I could see if she would give any hint about whether Manuelo had