Dancing Dudes Read Online Free

table.
    “Did you know your son’s a poet?” Dad said, smiling at Mom. Just then my big sister, Geri, walked in.
    “You, a poet?” she laughed. “Right.”
    “What did you write, Raymond?” Mom said, giving Geri a stern look.
    “Graham and I wrote poems for everyone in our class. And I have to admit, they’re pretty good,” I said. “Just listen to this—I’ll write one about you, Mom.
    “ Mom, Mom,
You’re so . . .
Let’s see, you’re so . . .
    “Okay, hold on a minute,” I said. I tried to think of things that rhymed with Mom . Mom, pom, dom, gom, zom, som, I thought to myself. Then it came to me . . . Mother , not Mom . Mother would be much easier. “Okay, here I go . . .” I said.
    “Mother, Mother,
You’re so . . .
You’re so . . . um . . .”
    “I’ve got one,” Geri blurted out. “How about this:
    “Brother, Brother,
A dork like no other,
Can’t make a rhyme
For his dear old mother.”
    She leaned back laughing.
    “Geri, that’s enough,” Mom said in a tone that my sister understood. Geri immediately stopped laughing and started eating. “And Raymond, I’m sure you wrote some wonderful poems today.” Mom smiled at me.
    Oh, great, I thought. My mom’s using her ‘feel sorry for Raymond’ voice . I hated that voice. It’s bad enough to have your big sister call you a dork, but to have your mom feel sorry for you for being a dork is much worse. Then a brilliant idea came to my mind. This was my ticket away from the dinner table and that pile of string beans on my plate. The best time to get away with something is when your mom feels sorry for you.
    I put on a sad face and tried to make my eyes water. I even pinched myself to cry, but it didn’t work. “Mom,” I said in my saddest voice, rubbing my eyes, “I tried to write a good poem for you, but I guess I’m just a bad poet, like Geri said.”
    “Oh, honey, you’re a great poet,” Mom said. “Don’t you worry about your sister. She’s just doing what twelve-year-old sisters do.”
    This was working perfectly. Now for the finale. I made a sniffle noise. “Well, I finished all of my chicken, but I sort of don’t feel like eating anymore. Do you think I can just go to my room and practice writing a poem for you?” I slid my chair back and started to stand up.
    “Sure, sweetie,” she said. Then she put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Just as soon as you finish your beans. Then you can go and write as many poems as you like.”
    I fell back into my chair and looked down at the pile of beans on my plate. I could feel Geri laughing at me. I stared at those beans for a long time . . . a really long time. I stared at them until I was the only one left at the table. Dad cleared all of the other plates and left the kitchen. But there was absolutely no way I was going to put those beans into my mouth. I would rather stay there until I was an old man. Maybe the beans would dry up and blow away.
    As I sat there thinking about how long it would take for a bean to dry up, a thought came to mind: Maggie, our dog, eats anything. I hadn’t fed her my food under the table for weeks. It used to be my regular way of finishing my dinner. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it sooner.
    “Mom, I’ll be right back,” I said. “I just need to go to the bathroom.” She set some dishes in the sink and came over to see if I was bringing my beans into the bathroom, one of my other tricks.
    “Okay, sweetie, but hurry right back to finish those beans,” she said.
    “Of course,” I said. I walked to the bathroom, waited a minute or two, and then flushed the toilet. I could see our dog down the hall in the living room.
    “Come on,” I whispered to Maggie. “Come on, girl. Do you want some food?” Suddenly, Maggie’s ears perked up and she followed me back to the kitchen and went straight under the table. She knew the routine. I sat down and grabbed one bean and dropped it under the table to see if she would eat it. I