Mitch and Amy Read Online Free Page B

mother was still troubled, and she was troubled herself. She did not like to think of Alan telling her brother to start running. The whole thing sounded like part of the kind of television program her mother would not let her watch. Alan seemed to think he was some kind of TV character, a bully on a shooting program. And the skateboard! Thinking about the broken skateboard her brother had worked so hard to build all by himself hurt Amy. Thinking how Mitchell was feeling hurt her, too.
    Amy no longer felt like pretending she was a pioneer girl enduring hardships, cooking cornmeal mush in a fireplace during ablizzard. The magic had gone out of the game, and she did not want to pretend anymore. She thought about Mitchell and how much he liked anything with a motor, and so she said, “Mitch, would you like to make the instant pudding?”
    Mitchell looked suspicious, and Amy knew he was wondering why she was giving up a chance to use the electric mixer. “How come?” he asked.
    â€œOh well, if you don’t want to—” Not for anything would Amy let her brother know how sorry she felt about what had happened.
    â€œSure I want to.”
    â€œThen go ahead.” Now Amy knew what she wanted to wish for on her third dandelion. She would wish that that old bully, Alan Hibbler, would leave her brother alone. And when she made her wish she would blow so hard that every single dandelion seed would fly off dancing into the wind.

3
The Quarrel
    D o I really get to make the pudding?” Mitchell asked his mother after Marla had discovered it was time to go home.
    â€œOf course,” answered Mrs. Huff.
    â€œAnd be sure you don’t spoil it,” said Amy. “Do you want me to read the directions for you?”
    Mrs. Huff answered. “You don’t have to read for him, Amy. It will be good practice for him. And you can be settingthe table for lunch.”
    People were always telling Mitchell he could read, but somehow he had trouble believing them. If he could read, really read, not just stumble along in an easy book, why was he always in the slowest reading group in his class?
    But Mitchell was not a boy to stay down-hearted long. He studied the printing on the pudding-mix box, which was much smaller than the printing in a Think and Do book.
    â€œSound out the hard words if you have trouble,” said his mother, who was taking a package of hamburger out of the refrigerator. His mother was always telling him to sound out words.
    â€œAw, Mom, it isn’t that hard to read.” Mitchell tore open the package and emptied the pudding mix into the bowl of the mixer and consulted the directions again before he took a bottle of milk from the refrigeratorand carefully added two cups of milk to the yellow powder in the bowl. Once more he consulted the directions, reading each word slowly and carefully and feeling pleased that he really could understand the words and do what they told him.
    Next he took an egg from a carton in the refrigerator and cracked it gently against the bowl. He pushed his two thumbs against the cracked place, and the whole side of the shell caved in. Mitchell quickly held the egg over the bowl while the white ran out of the shell. “Yipe!” yelped Mitchell, bringing Amy to look over his shoulder.
    â€œMom!” cried Amy. “Mitchell is putting egg in the pudding. He isn’t supposed to put egg in instant pudding!”
    â€œYou are, too. It says so on the box.” The rest of the egg, shell and all, slipped out of his fingers into the bowl. “Now see what you made me do.”
    â€œIt does not say you’re supposed to putegg in the pudding,” insisted Amy. “I’ve made instant pudding millions of times, and I know.” She snatched up the box while Mitchell wiped his eggy fingers on his jeans.

    Mitchell grabbed the box away from his sister. “I’m making this pudding,” he informed her.
    â€œAll right,