EllRay Jakes Stands Tall Read Online Free

thing.
    And I have learned how to do it, even though it doesn’t make any sense.
    That’s what a lot of school is like, if you ask me.
    â€œDo I
have
to talk to Alfie?” I ask Dad. “I already played horsie with her for ten minutes after her bath. And I’m kind of busy here,” I tell him, ruffling my worksheet a little. “Negative numbers,” I add, like they’re piling up fast—in an invisible empty bucket, maybe.
    â€œBetter just get it over with,” he advises, shaking his head. “This situation is not going away.”

    â€œSo what’s up?” I ask, padding barefoot into Alfie’s pink-and-purple bedroom, now lit only by a glowing sparkly plastic flower that my mom plugged into an outlet on the wall.
    Alfie is sitting up in bed, pillows all over the place. “Shh,” she whispers, peering at the door, as if Mom and Dad might be hiding behind it, trying to get in on this.
    Mm-hmm.
    â€œClose the door, EllWay,” my sister says. “I have to tell you something important. It’s about my kindergarten party.”
    â€œWhich you’re not having,” I remind her. But I take a seat at the very end of her bed—between a couple of stuffed animals. A unicorn and a dolphin.
    Alfie thinks unicorns are real and dolphins aren’t real, by the way. Just to give you some idea of the way her brain works.
    â€œAnd I don’t even want a party,” Alfie says. “Not
here,
even though I do wanna start practicing for being a kindergarten girl. But I don’t like parties athome. You know that! Because at parties, I have to share my toys.”
    It’s true. That’s one of our mom’s rules—though she lets us put a couple of toys away before kids come over, if we really need to. But just one or two things.
    â€œI like parties to be at school,” Alfie explains. “Or at the pizza place. Or at the movies. Not here.”
    â€œSo why are you bugging Mom and Dad to let you have a party here?” I ask.
    â€œBecause this is where it would have to be,” Alfie says, as if she is giving me a good explanation. “I already told Suzette she can’t come! And that means she will never be able to play with my new horsie barn. But you can’t tell Mom the part about Suzette and the horsie barn. That’s our deal.”
    It’s true. We keep each other’s secrets. We are on the same team.
    â€œWait a minute,” I say, holding up a hand. “You want to have a party here, at home, where you don’t even like having parties—just so Suzette Monahan can’t come to it?”
    Alfie nods. “And I already
told
her she can’tcome. So she will never, ever be able to play with my new horsie barn,” she explains once more. “
Or
get the best goodie bag ever.
Or
get to pretend she’s in kindergarten. And it serves her wight.”
    â€œRight.”
    I skip over a few of the obvious things wrong with Alfie’s plan, such as the fact that she doesn’t even
have
a new barn yet for her plastic horses, she just wants one. And there aren’t any goodie bags lying around the house—because there isn’t going to
be
a party, whether Alfie wants one or not.
    Which she doesn’t, not really.
    But instead of pointing out these obvious flaws in her plan, I ask my sister a question. “Why did you tell Suzette she can’t come to your party?”
    â€œTo be mean to her before she’s mean to me,” Alfie explains.
    Like,
“Duh.”
    â€œI decided it on Monday,” she adds, as if that’s why it makes sense.
    I think for a few seconds, trying to figure out whether or not this is a good example of negative numbers in action.
    1. Take one party that is not going to happen—here or anywhere.
    2. Subtract one little girl, Suzette, who is not invited to come to that party.
    3. Then, whatever happens, do not allow Suzette to play with the