Read Online Not the End of the World by Rebecca Stowe - Free Book Online

Sure, she’d let me be on it, because if she didn’t her mother would murder her. “Why, just because Maggie’s in a little trouble,” Mrs. Tucker would say, “that doesn’t mean you should shun her.” But I would never ask Cindy to let me be one of her stupid squaws—I’d rather throw myself down the cement-plant smokestack than go crawling to Cindy for a place on her float.
    I looked at Ginger, who was bent over, searching through some wild rhubarb. Maybe it was a set-up. Maybe she was supposed to lure me to Cindy’s garage so they could “get” me. Maybe my turn had come and Ginger was paying me back for just standing there, watching, while they went after her.
    “You’re paranoid,” Donald always said; it was his favorite word. “You’re paranoid,” he’d say when Mother cried over the broccoli. “You’re paranoid,” he’d say when Ruthie would fly off to Birdland. Everybody was paranoid . He thought it was because the Russians had infiltrated Canada and were sending thought-waves across the Lake to make us turn on each other so they could come over and pick up the pieces after we blew ourselves to bits.
    “I thought you were my friend!” I cried, the tears starting to form behind my eyes. My throat was getting all tight and I knew if I didn’t get out of there, I’d start crying, and it was against my rules to cry in public.
    “I am your friend,” Ginger insisted. “I just want to be in the Parade!” She jumped out of the rhubarb and came towards me, but I held out my arm—Don’t come near me, I thought, and Goober growled at her.
    “Maggie, Jeez,” she said, “don’t get so upset!”
    But it was too late, I was already upset—my best friend, my only friend left in the world, was deserting me and telling me not to get upset about it, but what else could I be?
    “I hate you!” I cried, but my throat was so tight from holding back the sobs that the words just came out like little peeps, little Ruthie bird-sounds.
    I had to get out of there I had to get away from Ginger before Sarah took over and started wringing her hands and crying and saying stupid stuff like, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to get mad, don’t desert me, I’m sorry, it’s all my fault!”
    “I hate you!” I peeped again and ran further into the woods, towards the Bensons’.

“W ELL , now I’ve done it,” I told Goob as we hid in the rhododendron bushes behind the Bensons’, “I’ve lost my only friend.”
    Goober wriggled her way onto my lap, as if to say, “You’ll always have me.” Why couldn’t people be more like dogs, I wondered. They always loved you no matter what and even if you got mad at them, if they’d been on the beach rolling around in dead fish and then wanted to crawl all over you and you pushed them away and said, “Yuck! Go away!” they’d just go lie down in a corner and watch you and as soon as you were nice again, they’d be jumping up and down and as happy as ever. Why couldn’t people be like that? People always pretended they forgave you, but they never did. They just stored it up and the first time you did something wrong, they’d dig it out of the filing cabinet and wave it in your face and say, “You’re always mean and nasty, remember that time you spat on me when we were two?”
    I was more mad at myself than at Ginger. “You idiot,” Margaretsaid. “Now every body hates you.” I was mostly mad because Ginger and I were going to go to the Parade together and watch it from the roof of the bank building, where her father had his law office. We could have stood up there, giggling and making fun of Cindy and her squaws, but it was no fun going alone. Who could I make jokes to? Besides, if I went downtown by myself, everybody would say, “There’s that Maggie Pittsfield. No one will be friends with her,” and the awful thing about it was that they would be right.
    It was getting late and cold and I supposed I should go home, but I didn’t want