Читать книгу Roy Blakeley Up in the Air - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 3

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Now you’re going to see how it’s a good thing not to have fifty cents. Because anyway, Ben Maxwell had two dollars that he spent on the four of us—himself and Marvin Meeke who’s a new kid in Bridgeboro, and Pee-wee and me, even if you say that Pee-wee counts one. If you multiply him by six he makes a boy scout. But anyway he’s so short you can’t do him by long division. So, like I said, Ben spent all he had on us taking us to the circus and we didn’t have any money so we had a lot of fun.

We didn’t have enough money that day (that’s the day I’m going to tell you about) to go to Sunny Acres—Salina Swankey lives up there and she was going to have a great big time on account of Major Bigwing was going to land there and they were going to make a big fuss over him. So we wanted to see him but we took a hike instead, we should worry, because we got there just the same, not saying how—anyway we didn’t pay fifty cents each to get in. We didn’t pay anything and if you want to see what we did, come ahead, we don’t care. But one thing, there’s a lot about airplanes in this story and they drown Pee-wee’s voice—that’s one good thing about airplanes.

We started from my front porch to take a hike and all the time we were wishing we had the money to go to Sunny Acres; Pee-wee was yelling about it, so you’ll hear him afterward. But no fooling, those people had an awful nerve charging fifty cents for a ticket to get in and see Major Bigwing even if he is a famous aviator. Ice cream cones are famous too, but goodnight you can get ten small ones for fifty cents but on account of Pee-wee’s appetite we usually get double deckers so that would only make five cones for a half a dollar. An aviator hasn’t anything to do with ice cream cones, Ben said, and so I told him I’d believe it if I didn’t see it and that fifty cents was a half a dollar just the same.

After that was settled I decided we should drown our troubles on a hike so right away Marvin Meeke wanted to know if we had to swim across the river or anything like that because he can’t swim. So I told him no on account of he gets scared so easy, he’s such a skinny fellow and little, and he has awful light hair. Anyway I even saw him jump when Pee-wee whispered one time and if you don’t believe me you want to hear the kid whisper—maybe you’d jump too.

Then we thought how it would be nice to go on a left and right hike because I said that that way we’d be sure to come out somewhere and Ben agreed with me. But Pee-wee didn’t. Right away he started an argument about it and he said that if we went right and left we’d come out from where we started or something like that, and I began to tease him and said that if we did that it wouldn’t be where we started from, it would be the end.

So that was the time that Pee-wee whispered that it wasn’t the end and Marvin jumped six feet into the air he was so frightened. Anyway it was the end of the morning because my mother called that lunch was ready and wanted to know if the bunch would stay too and Pee-wee said yes, that he’d stay. Ben and Marvin couldn’t so they went away and promised to come back for the hike at one o’clock so’s to give the kid time to eat three helpings of dessert. That’s one time I felt sorry for our cook.

Anyway my mother called up Mrs. Harris to tell her that the kid was going to stay for lunch and it was a good thing she did. It saved Pee-wee time—time to eat more and even at that we were fifteen minutes late before we started and if you subtract that from one o’clock you don’t get any answer, but I should worry.

So now I got to end this chapter because my sister wants me to go downtown and give a message to a girl friend. Goodnight, I hate to do things like that and I wouldn’t go except that this girl friend lives down in the other part of town and I have to pass Bennett’s Confectionery on my way so I kind of make two trips in one.

Anyway I’ll see you in the next chapter because that’s where we start the hike. The first road we took was the left because it was the right one and if you don’t believe me you can prove it by Pee-wee.

Now I’m going downtown and it won’t take me long.