Read Online My Own Two Feet by Beverly Cleary - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Beverly Cleary
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what sort of girl is this Beverly.â
We had planned to stay two nights at the San Francisco YWCA so we could spend a day sightseeing, but after one night we were so eager to get to Ontario, as if we were afraid it might have disappeared during the summer, that we consulted the bus schedule and found the next bus for Los Angeles left in late afternoon. We arrived at the station early and each rented a pillow, a necessity, not an extravagance, we decided, after our previous night on the bus.
We had not noticed that this bus traveled by Highway 99, a much longer, hotter trip than theroute I had taken the year before. It was a miserable journey with many stops.
Bakersfield, in those days before air-conditioning, was an oven at midnight. Inside the station hundreds of sinister-looking large-winged insects swooped and flopped. Norma and I were too sweaty to eat and beat off bugs, so we climbed back onto the bus. Neither of us could sleep. I wondered if this bus driver had pinpoint eye.
Daylight. In Los Angeles we ate a greasy breakfast at a counter in the station before we changed to a bus bound for Ontario, where we arrived grimy and rumpled. After the ritual agricultural inspection of our trunks, we walked, overnight cases in hand, to our new address, a big old gray house on Euclid Avenue.
The landlady, Mrs. Tuckness, who was also a dressmaker, led us upstairs to the two front rooms, identical in size and separated by a closet with a curtain of eucalyptus buds strung like beads. The floors were painted ârobinâs egg blueâ and had large linoleum rugs. Each room had a door into the hall. We were not given keys and did not think this unusual. After we paid our rent, Mrs. Tuckness said, âIt is going to be fun to have girls around, and as long as I can hear noise when young men come to call I wonât worry about you.â
We stepped out onto the shaky balcony outside our living-bedroom to look at the library and the palms, grevillea, and pepper trees along Euclid Avenue. We were exhausted, ecstatic, and in need of baths. I shared my farewell gift of lavender bath salts, and we emerged in turn, fragrant and ready to set up housekeeping. Lunch? Our Greyhound breakfasts still weighed on our stomachs. Our trunks were delivered, and we unpacked, dividing our meager wardrobes between a closet off the kitchen and the closet between the two rooms. Norma had brought an unexpected luxury, a small radio that we placed on the lamp table. She set photographs of her two handsome brothers on her half of the dressing table.
We placed a sign for the iceman in the front window before we walked to the A&P to lay in a supply of groceries. Then, groggy with fatigue, we prepared a hasty supper on the three-burners-over-an-oven stove and, like the good housekeepers our mothers had brought us up to be, washed and dried the dishes and returned them to the china cabinet.
By then we could barely stay awake, so we tackled the studio couch Mrs. Tuckness had bought for us to sleep on. She had explained, âWhen young men come to call, it wouldnât do to have a bed in the living room.â
That green couch! It had three cushions propped against the wall. The bottom of the couch pulled out like a drawer to make a second place to sleep and for storing bedding during the day. We had to move the mattress from the top to the pull-out section. Because Norma was tall, she took the foundation of the couch, which had springs and was a few inches longer and about six inches higher than the lower half. When we made up our uneven bed with our new sheets, we discovered there was no place for Norma to tuck in her half of the bedding. âNever mind,â she said. âI can balance the cushions on my feet to hold the blanket down.â
Exhausted, I fell into my half of the bed and watched, fascinated, as Norma went through a series of exercises. Thatâs a P.E. major for you, I thought. When she had completed her exercises,
We had planned to stay two nights at the San Francisco YWCA so we could spend a day sightseeing, but after one night we were so eager to get to Ontario, as if we were afraid it might have disappeared during the summer, that we consulted the bus schedule and found the next bus for Los Angeles left in late afternoon. We arrived at the station early and each rented a pillow, a necessity, not an extravagance, we decided, after our previous night on the bus.
We had not noticed that this bus traveled by Highway 99, a much longer, hotter trip than theroute I had taken the year before. It was a miserable journey with many stops.
Bakersfield, in those days before air-conditioning, was an oven at midnight. Inside the station hundreds of sinister-looking large-winged insects swooped and flopped. Norma and I were too sweaty to eat and beat off bugs, so we climbed back onto the bus. Neither of us could sleep. I wondered if this bus driver had pinpoint eye.
Daylight. In Los Angeles we ate a greasy breakfast at a counter in the station before we changed to a bus bound for Ontario, where we arrived grimy and rumpled. After the ritual agricultural inspection of our trunks, we walked, overnight cases in hand, to our new address, a big old gray house on Euclid Avenue.
The landlady, Mrs. Tuckness, who was also a dressmaker, led us upstairs to the two front rooms, identical in size and separated by a closet with a curtain of eucalyptus buds strung like beads. The floors were painted ârobinâs egg blueâ and had large linoleum rugs. Each room had a door into the hall. We were not given keys and did not think this unusual. After we paid our rent, Mrs. Tuckness said, âIt is going to be fun to have girls around, and as long as I can hear noise when young men come to call I wonât worry about you.â
We stepped out onto the shaky balcony outside our living-bedroom to look at the library and the palms, grevillea, and pepper trees along Euclid Avenue. We were exhausted, ecstatic, and in need of baths. I shared my farewell gift of lavender bath salts, and we emerged in turn, fragrant and ready to set up housekeeping. Lunch? Our Greyhound breakfasts still weighed on our stomachs. Our trunks were delivered, and we unpacked, dividing our meager wardrobes between a closet off the kitchen and the closet between the two rooms. Norma had brought an unexpected luxury, a small radio that we placed on the lamp table. She set photographs of her two handsome brothers on her half of the dressing table.
We placed a sign for the iceman in the front window before we walked to the A&P to lay in a supply of groceries. Then, groggy with fatigue, we prepared a hasty supper on the three-burners-over-an-oven stove and, like the good housekeepers our mothers had brought us up to be, washed and dried the dishes and returned them to the china cabinet.
By then we could barely stay awake, so we tackled the studio couch Mrs. Tuckness had bought for us to sleep on. She had explained, âWhen young men come to call, it wouldnât do to have a bed in the living room.â
That green couch! It had three cushions propped against the wall. The bottom of the couch pulled out like a drawer to make a second place to sleep and for storing bedding during the day. We had to move the mattress from the top to the pull-out section. Because Norma was tall, she took the foundation of the couch, which had springs and was a few inches longer and about six inches higher than the lower half. When we made up our uneven bed with our new sheets, we discovered there was no place for Norma to tuck in her half of the bedding. âNever mind,â she said. âI can balance the cushions on my feet to hold the blanket down.â
Exhausted, I fell into my half of the bed and watched, fascinated, as Norma went through a series of exercises. Thatâs a P.E. major for you, I thought. When she had completed her exercises,