Hound Dog True Read Online Free

window?" she says.
    Uncle Potluck raises an eyebrow. "You've been taking notes?"
    Mattie nods.
    "May I see?"
    Mama had asked to see Mattie's old yellow notebook once but had turned her mind to something else before Mattie could show it to her. She hadn't shown it to Mrs. D'Angelo, either. Star had read it, but Mattie had never shown it to anyone.
    Mattie sets her janitorial notebook on the desk, turns it so Uncle Potluck can see the list of things that need doing. And he looks so pleased, she shows him other pages, too, notes about toilets and fire alarms and how many classrooms are in the school. Shows him a page she wrote while he was checking his e-mail, about how the whole school was dark-silent this morning until Uncle Potluck jingled his keys in the doors and flipped on the lights. How he checked all the hallways and warmed them up, singing about
eloquence escaping
and
da-doo-doo-doo,
and, even with his traitorous knee, dancing a few steps in each hallway.
    Mattie does not show him the front page, the one where she has written Mattie Breen, and Custodial Apprentice underneath.
    Not yet.
    Uncle Potluck rubs his chin. "I shall have to watch myself now that I know you are recording our custodial endeavors for posterity."
    "What is posterity?" Mattie asks.
    Uncle Potluck pulls a dictionary off a shelf marked WISDOM and hands it to her.
    Posterity
is future generations.
    Mattie looks up
custodial,
too. It doesn't say anything about doorknobs or mopping or leaky pipes. It says this:
    Care or supervision, rather than efforts to cure.
and
    Guarding or maintaining.
    Mattie likes the idea of caring for the school. Of guarding it. Making it safe.
    Uncle Potluck picks up his toolbox. "You coming, Mattie Mae?"
    "Just a second," Mattie says. Doorknobs, she writes. Thursday, she writes. Safe and square.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    A LL DAY M ATTIE FOLLOWS Uncle Potluck close, watching, making notes for the posterity people best she can. A few times she has to set her notebook aside-like for helping set up the playhouse in the kindergarten and for sink-cleaning in the girls' restroom. It is hard writing neat with rubber gloves on.
    She stays close after work, too. Stays close finding radio stations in the pickup truck and plucking garden beans and hunting softball-size pumpkins in the tangle patch. So close, Uncle Potluck turns and bumps her smack into the stone rabbit, toppling both of them to the dirt.
    "Mattie Mae," Uncle Potluck says, pulling her back up to standing. "I believe you have earned yourself a rest."
    "I'm not tired," Mattie says. Not too tired, anyway.
    Uncle Potluck sets the stone rabbit to rights, tugs his hat down low. "What I am about to do, I must do alone," he says.
    Mattie blushes thinking maybe he means the bathroom but turns out Uncle Potluck has a report to fill out for Principal Bonnet. "As I'm sure you are aware, great writing is a solitary pursuit."
    Mattie nods. She is aware. And she has writing to do, too. Custodial notes she could not write down earlier. "Okay," she says.
    Mattie nabs her notebook from its safe spot under the pillow and carries it out to the rise, to Uncle Potluck's rock. She can see Miss Sweet's house from there—its doors all shut and shades pulled down. The yard is quiet.
    Mattie lays herself flat on the rock. Lays the notebook flat, too.
Custodial Wisdom: Day Two
Fifteen times thirty
    They had been to the cafeteria today. You had to go through the cafeteria to get to the big garbage bins outside, and Uncle Potluck had two trash cans for emptying.
    Mattie had tried helping, tried grabbing a handle and rolling a trash can herself, but Uncle Potluck had said no. Said the cans were too heavy and should Mattie try rolling one she might lose hold and get squished and then none of her school clothes would fit right. Instead Mattie followed, looking ahead for obstacles she might move from Uncle Potluck's path.
    "There are things you need to know about the Mitchell P. Anderson cafeteria," Uncle