Good Graces Read Online Free

crashed down into Sampson’s pit. He died, so the only one he’s playing chess with now is Lucifer.
    The reason we came here today is so I can say one last good-bye to Sampson. On one side of me on the zoo bench this morning is Mary Lane. (We have to call her by her first and last name like that because around here if you just shout out “Mary” you could get trampled to death since it is the most popular name there is due to the Blessed Virgin.) Mary Lane is wearing her usual high-top tennis shoes and just like us, shorts and a T-shirt. She smells like stale potato chips. She always does. On my other side is my sister. Troo couldn’t care less about saying au revoir to Sampson if she tried. She only came along so she can bug Mary Lane. My sister’s got on her navy blue beret. It’s a flat hat perched high on top of her hair, which our beautifying half sister, Nell, has shown her how to put into a French twist.
    “Just ’cause they’re movin’ the zoo doesn’t mean ya ain’t never gonna see Sampson again,” Mary Lane tells me.
    She doesn’t take up much room on the bench. Even after Doc Sullivan pulled that tapeworm out of her, she is still the skinniest kid you’ve ever seen. She’d probably go invisible if her zookeeper father didn’t give her bananas for free. She is also a peeper. She lights fires, too. And I secretly think that she is the cat burglar that’s been prowling around the neighborhood for over two months now. (This is not a person who steals pets, which is what most people think until somebody sets them straight. A cat burglar is what you call somebody who gets dressed in black and comes into your house sneaky to steal something precious.) Mary Lane could easily slip through a barely open kitchen window, especially if she smelled a pot roast cooking on the other side, and she spends a ton of time at the zoo so she knows how tigers and leopards move like they’re doing you a big favor by setting their feet down and really, she is sort of hard up and doesn’t have a very big conscience so it makes sense that she is the one breaking one of the Commandments and coveting her neighbors’ valuables out of their houses. She could hock them at Gerald’s Pawnshop on North Avenue to get money for food.
    I haven’t told my suspicions about Mary Lane to Troo. She would find some way to use that against her and make fun of my imagination while she was doing it. I know I should, but I haven’t told Dave either. He’s the cop in charge of hunting the cat burglar down. Mary Lane is one of my two best friends and I’m no stool pigeon, but even if I was, what a waste of time that’d be. Even if Dave caught her and threw her in jail, how would they ever keep her skinny self behind bars?
    Mary Lane says, “My dad’s been goin’ out to the new zoo every day to get things set up for when it opens. He told me that Bluemound Road is pretty far away, but not that far.”
    Mr. Lane, who works at the zoo feeding the animals and doing other odd jobs, told us that they will all be packed up by tomorrow and then the bulldozers will come and knock down the buildings to put in a new expressway. The birds are already gone. Of course, the swans put up a fuss. They always remind me of Troo. Gorgeous to look at, but what a mouth they got on ’em. While we were away at camp, the chimps got taken away from Monkey Island in black zipper bags after they got sleeping shots. The reptile house has been boarded up for a while, which is no skin offa my nose. Mary Lane kept telling me last summer that Bobby Brophy reminded her of a boa constrictor, which is a kind of snake that can swallow a kid whole. If only I’d listened to her.
    “Hey,” Mary Lane says, flicking me on the arm. “Ya havin’ one a your flights of imagination?”
    This is one of the reasons she is my best friend. Mary Lane understands that my mind flies around sometimes without me and I understand that she’s got a problem with getting her facts