Read Online Lizzie! by Maxine Kumin - Free Book Online

exercises or not wanting to go down to the beach or why do we have to have macaroni and cheese again.
    I’m mixed up about myself too. Most of the time I’m perfectly happy being left alone so I can read or look up words to find out where they come from or work on this autobiography. Some days I think I’m going to become a professional writer and write my own column in a major newspaper and answer all the letters people send me. There will be more letters than Dear Abby gets and I’ll have to hire someone to help me keep up. Some days I miss my old life and my old friends from before the accident so bad that I just want to go back to bed and cry. I have days when I feel so lonely that all I want to do is lie down and weep like somebody in Louisa May Alcott but I try not to let anybody know it.

 
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    CHAPTER 11
    T he next morning while I was eating my cereal and bananas, Digger called Mom. He said he had dialed the wildlife emergency hotline about the bear cubs last night. He told them he was retired Chief of Police Diego Martinez from Montandino, California, and they were very interested. They asked him to check out the situation and report back. So he would be making a separate trip to the petting zoo today on his own. I knew it wasn’t just about the cubs. I felt like somebody who got all dressed up for the party and then didn’t get invited. I didn’t even finish my cornflakes. By the time Mom dropped me off at school I was in a bad mood. Right in the middle of algebra class the principal sent for me. I hadn’t done anything wrong that I could think of but I wheeled down to the office with a sinking feeling in my stomach.
    â€œIt’s nothing bad, Lizzie,” the secretary told me. “There’s a message from your mom that a man named Diego Martinez will be picking you up after school today. He’ll have to sign in. We have to be very careful about strangers, you understand. Do you know who he is? Is that going to be all right?”
    I knew she meant that any stranger is a security issue. You can’t just drop in at Graver Academy, so I said, “He’s my honorary grandfather, he’s a very important man. And it’s very all right.” But now I was all confused. If Digger was going to investigate Henry and the cubs this morning, why was he coming to get me after school this afternoon? And where was Mom going to be? I hope I remembered to say thank you before I went back to class. Graver is big on manners.At lunch I just had time to tell Josh where Digger had gone this morning and how confused I was that he was coming to get me after classes.
    He agreed. “But you’ll see. There’s bound to be a reason.” Then the bell rang. “Catch up with you later.” Digger met me at Graver and there was a reason. It turned out that Henry had called Mom just after she took me to school. He’d asked her for a favor. Would she come and get him and drive him and his mother to the hospital in Dirk Isle? His mother’s legs were very swollen and he’d finally convinced her that she needed to see a doctor. Of course Mom said yes.
    â€œSo who’s going to take care of the animals?” I asked Digger.
    â€œWe are, chica. ”
    With that, I cheered up. Feeding the animals was super easy and it would be fun to show off for Digger. Kibble for Buddy and Blossom. Hay for the goats and burro. Chicken-scratch feed for the fowl and two or three lettuce leaves for the iguana and tortoise, if they were interested.
    Henry had left the key to the bears’ enclosure under the yellow brick, as promised. I felt very proud as I unlocked the gate and Digger came in with me to admire Buddy and Blossom.
    â€œ Chica , I have a confession to make. I have never been this close to a bear before,” he said as he doled out pecans one after the other. “This is my first and probably my last time.”
    After we’d fed all the animals,