Read Online Two-Thousand-Pound Goldfish by Betsy Byars - Free Book Online Page A

jagged mouths snapping open and shut as they came clattering into view.
    “No! No!”
    Dropping his flashlight, he would turn and start running down the steps. He would trip on the third step and tumble head over heels to the bottom. There he would crouch with his arms over his head for protection.
    “No! Please! No! Noooooooo!”
    But the pipe snakes wouldn’t kill the old man. Eating flesh wouldn’t be their thing. They would just clatter right over him and around him and on down the steps and out the front door of the hospital.
    In the silence that followed, the old man would get up like a cowhand after a stampede. He would brush himself off, check his arms and legs for injuries, pick up his flashlight, shine it around the empty stairs. He would shake his head in disbelief.
    Then he would go to his station, pick up his half empty bottle of booze, and drop it into the nearest trash can. “Never again,” he’d say.
    Warren realized he was sitting there with a smile on his face. He looked around quickly to see if anyone had noticed. Aunt Pepper was still at the door. Weezie’s head was turned the other way. The old man in the wheelchair had fallen asleep.
    Film critics would call the movie “original” and “powerful.” They would say, “Excellent special effects.” He would like to see the movie himself—that was the real test of one of his movies, when he himself would pay money to see it.
    There were, of course, problems to work out. For example, why would everybody be scared of the pipes if they didn’t do anything but run around? Sure, nobody would want pipes running wild in the streets, cutting across yards, making holes in lawns. That would be a terrible nuisance.
    Maybe the pipes could activate other pipes, make them leap right out of washing machines and toilets and join in the stampede. Housewives would see the pipes coming and go after them with brooms. “Stay away from my pipes!” POW! SWAT! ZONK!
    Warren was smiling again. Quickly he put his hand over his mouth to hide his expression.
    Weezie put her arm around him again. Her look was sympathetic. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
    “Yes.” He pulled away, shrugged off her arm, and settled back into his thoughts.
    Suddenly Weezie’s look sharpened. “What are you thinking about?”
    “Nothing.”
    “I would really like to know.”
    “Nothing! I’m not thinking about anything. What makes you think I’m thinking about something?”
    “You don’t have to be defensive.”
    “I’m not being defensive. I just wasn’t thinking about anything. You want me to make something up? All right, I was thinking about school. Are you satisfied? Anyway, I was not daydreaming, if that’s what you were getting at.”
    “You daydream too much.”
    “I said I was not daydreaming.” He crossed his arms and sat back in his chair, his mouth set, his eyes dark. He began to kick his heels against the chair legs.
    “I can always tell when you’re daydreaming because you have a sort of out-of-it look on your face. It’s very obvious. It’s like you’re on drugs or something.”
    He snapped around and stared at her. “I suppose all your thoughts are perfect. I suppose you were sitting there thinking about world affairs!” He was so angry he was trembling.
    “I was thinking about Grandma!”
    “Sure you were!”
    There was a pause and then Weezie said, “A little daydreaming is fine, Warren. It’s like a little food or a little wine. Only when it becomes the most important thing you do, when you gorge yourself with food … There’s a girl in my school who freaks out on food, and she’s bigger than somebody in a sideshow. She’s carried eating so far she can’t even lead a normal life. And you’re carrying daydreaming too far. You’re a daydream freak. You’re not in the world ninety-five percent of the time.”
    “I am,” he sputtered. “I—It’s not the same.” The accusation was so unjust he could not find the right words.