Read Online One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street by Joanne Rocklin - Free Book Online

that. The invisible, theoretical angel opened one eye.
    Ms. Snoops giggled. “Then, just before the
ghost
drove away in his green car, I got a better look. And I realized it must have been the slant of the sun, or his bushy beard, or my mind playing a trick on me, reminding me of someone who used to live on Orange Street, years ago.”
    Ms. Snoops had made finger quotes around the word “ghost.” Ali’s little angel yawned and went back to sleep. Ali herself sighed with relief because, for a second or two, she’d thought Ms. Snoops was a bit crazy, talking about ghosts. Ms. Snoops had so many thousands of memories, decades’ and decades’ worth! It was only natural they’d get in each other’s way.
    Ali went back to the
OED
. There it was. Infrangible.
    Infrangible, in-fran´gi-ble, adj. Not capable of—
    â€œIs that your friend Leandra, with her dog?” Ms. Snoops asked suddenly. “Or is that the girl with the animal name? I can never remember who is who.”
    Ali ran to the window to look. “That’s Bunny. She’s the one with the dog.”
    It was puzzling to Ali why Ms. Snoops couldn’t seem to remember who was who, when the who’s were so different. If you were comparing Bunny and Leandra, Bunny would be a little breeze, and Leandra would be a blustery, hot Santa Ana wind. Or Bunny would be a whistled tune under your breath, and Leandra would be a marching song, or the loud music they always play during the TV commercials.
    Ali opened the window, leaned out, and called, “Hey!”
    Robert poked his head out from behind the bougainvillea bush.
    â€œNot you, Robert! I was talking to Bunny,” Ali shouted, even though she knew that was
ignoble
of her. “Bunny! The meeting was cancelled!”
    Then, to Ali’s joy, there was Leandra herself, strolling down Orange Street toward the empty lot! Leandra looked up and waved at Ali. “Come on down,” said Leandra. “We’ll have another meeting!”
    In the meantime, Robert had raced across the street, carrying his big shoebox. He loped up Ms. Snoops’s outside and inside stairs, two at a time, and burst into her sunny office.
    â€œWhat are
you
doing here?” Robert asked Ali, panting a little. Robert was a boy some people called chubby. In any case, he wasn’t used to loping up anybody’s outside and inside stairs, two at a time.
    â€œI guess I should ask you the same question,” said Ali. “
I’m
looking up a word at the moment.”
    â€œWhich word?” asked Robert.
    â€œSpecifically, infrangible,” said Ali, returning to the
OED
.
    Infrangible, in-fran´gi-ble, adj. Not capable of being broken or separated into parts.
    â€œThen I guess I’m here to do that, too,” said Robert.
    â€œOh, sure you are,” said Ali, without looking up. “
Which
word, then?”
    Robert glanced around the room a bit wildly, his ears pinkening (Embarrassment Level One: grapefruit). He couldn’t think of a word as interesting as Ali’s at that moment, so he made one up. “Hifflesnuffle, for starters,” he said. Looking at the size of Ms. Snoops’s dictionary (a dictionary that needed its own table, for halibut’s sake!), Robert gambled that
hifflesnuffle
was in there, somewhere.
    â€œI’ll bet that’s not even a real word. But here, be my guest,” Ali said, handing him the magnifying glass.
    Robert stepped up to the podium. He slowly turned thethin pages of the
OED
. “Well, if hifflesnuffle’s not in here, I can always look it up online.”
    â€œRemember, if you can’t find it, that doesn’t mean it’s not a real word,” said Ms. Snoops. “New words get invented every day. That’s why the
OED
is so voluminous.”
    Actually, when you came right down to the truth, neither Robert, Ali, nor Ms. Snoops needed a dictionary or a computer to tell them what