Going, Going, Gone! With the Pain and the Great One Read Online Free Page A

your ears, either. Not even a Q-tip.”
    “How about between your toes?” Dylan said.
    “Between your toes is okay,” Dr. Itchee said. “There’s no place for it to get lost. But never put anything in any of your bodily orifices.”
    “Body
offices
?” I started thinking about having offices inside my body. And every day tiny people would go to work there.
    “Orifices,” Dr. Itchee said.
    “They don’t know that word,” Mom told her.
    “Even
I
don’t know that word,” the Great One said. “And I know a lot of words.”
    “It means openings,” Dr. Itchee said. “And in this case it means bodily openings.”
    “You mean holes?” Justin asked.
    “Yes,” Dr. Itchee said. “Nothing goes in any of your—”
    “Holes!” Dylan sang. Then the three of us laughed.
    Dr. Itchee sighed. “Let’s call them bodily openings, okay?”
    “What about food?” Justin asked. “Food goes into your mouth and that’s a—”
    “Hole!” Dylan sang again.
    Mom said, “Boys—listen to Dr. Itchee. She’s trying to tell you something important.”
    “Thank you,” Dr. Itchee said to Mom. “Jake was lucky today. But I’ve seen kids who weren’t so lucky. So I want you all to promise you’ll never do that.”
    “I promise,” I said.
    “Me too,” Dylan said, “even though it was a fun game!”
    Justin said, “I already knew not to put anything up my nose because my dad’s a doctor.”
    Dr. Itchee looked surprised. “Then why did you do it?”
    Justin shrugged. “Because my friends did.”
    “Just because your friends do something doesn’t mean you should.”
    Justin’s face turned red. He looked like he was going to cry. Mom said, “I think Justin knows that now. I think they all understand. Right, boys?”
    We nodded. Then I said, “Can we go home now?”
    Dr. Itchee said we could.
    “And can I take that furry booger with me?” I asked.
    “Euwww …” the Great One said. “That would be
so
disgusting!”
    “I like being disgusting,” I told her.
    “And you’re really good at it!” she said.
    “Thanks,” I answered.
    “You’re not welcome.”
    I laughed with my friends. Then we all went out for ice cream.

KAPOOIE ONE
    Yesterday it snowed. The first snow of the season. We built a snowman and put Dad’s old rain hat on top of his head. But last night it rained and made a mess of the snow. It’s still raining. A rainy December Sunday. Not that Dad’s rain hat is helping our snowman. I watched out the window as he melted away.
    When he was just about gone, Dadcalled, “Who wants to go to a movie at the mall?”

    “I do,” the Pain shouted. “I want to see
Fried
.”
    “No fair!” I said. Because who wants to see a stupid movie about a bunch of robotstrying to fry each other? “I want to see
Unicorn
.”
    “Unicorn?”
the Pain said. “That’s a
girl
movie!”
    “Is not!” I told him. “It’s about two boys and a girl.”
    “But it’s still a
girl
movie!”
    “We’ll only go if you can compromise,” Dad told us.
    “What’s compo … what’s that word?” the Pain asked.
    “Compromise,” Dad said. “It means decide together. It means if Abigail wants red and Jake wants blue …”
    Before Dad could finish I called, “We choose purple!”
    “Good thinking, Abigail,” Dad said.
    I smiled. I like being a good thinker.
    Then Dad added, “But that’s not necessarily the way it works, because maybe there is no purple. Maybe you have to decide on either red or blue because those are the only choices.”
    “I know,” I said to Dad. “You can take the Pain to see
Fried
and Mom can take me to see
Unicorn
.” I knew
that
was good thinking!
    But Dad said, “Mom needs the afternoon off to catch up on work.”
    “Okay,” the Pain said, just like that. “I’ll see the unicorn movie.”
    “You will?” I asked.
    “Yes,” he said. “Because I’m a good compo …”
    “Compromiser,” Dad said.
    That made me mad. “How come you didn’t give me the chance to