Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano (But She Does Love Being in Recitals) Read Online Free

sleep. And when she got home she didn’t go to bed. She stayed up to make 150 cupcakes with marshmallow frosting for Moxy’s party tonight.
    Not that she was sleeping now, Mrs. Maxwell reassured herself. She didn’t have time to sleep. She had to make sure Moxy could stop playing her part of “Heart and Soul” because … because … because. Suddenly Mrs. Maxwell couldn’t remember why it was so important to hear Moxy stop playing “Heart and Soul.”
    The reason Mrs. Maxwell couldn’t remember why it was so important to hear Moxy practice “Heart and Soul” was because Mrs. Maxwell had fallen asleep. In fact, she was already dreaming. She was dreaming there was a giraffe in the upstairs shower. It was singing “Heart and Soul.”
    When Moxy realized that her mother was asleep, she took some of the leftover velvet from the capes Granny George had made and covered her mother with it so she wouldn’t get cold, even though there was only a slight (5 mph) breeze.

chapter 43
In Which the Word
“Intermission”
Is Explained
    An Intermission is when you, the Reader, take a break from reading this book. Not a long break. You can’t, for example, go to Paris (unless of course you’re already in Paris). But you can get up and get some gum. Or pet the dog. Or call a friend who is also reading this book, to see if they’ve gotten to the Intermission Part yet. But then you must come back. Because the story is just heating up….

THE
INTERMISSION
PART

chapter 44
In Which
Mrs. Maxwell Wakes
    The sound of Moxy and Pansy practicing “Heart and Soul” did not wake Mrs. Maxwell. What woke Mrs. Maxwell was the vibration of Granny George’s sewing machine.
    The reason the sound of Moxy and Pansy practicing “Heart and Soul” did not wake Mrs. Maxwell was that Moxy and Pansy were not practicing “Heart and Soul.” They were upstairs in the guest room bathroom watching Sam cut the last white bath towel into five-inch strips with
the sharp scissors
.

chapter 45
In Which the Author
Repeats the Phrase
“with
the sharp

scissors
”
    With
the sharp scissors
.

chapter 46
In Which
Mrs. Maxwell Yawns
and Asks That
Age-old Question:
“How Long Have
I Been Asleep?”
    Out on the porch , Mrs. Maxwell yawned and asked Granny George that age-old question: “How long have I been asleep?”
    “Two hours and twenty-one minutes,” said Granny George. Granny George paid very close attention to time.
    Mrs. Maxwell had also been asleep long enough for Moxy to have almost finished making the fake ermine fur trim out of the old white guest towels.
    In fact, at the very moment when Mrs.Maxwell was yawning on the swing, Moxy was perched on the edge of the pink sink in the guest bathroom. She was watching Pansy put black dots on the second-to-last strip of what had recently been a whole white towel. Pansy was using Ajax’s permanent black Magic Marker.
    For his part, Mark was taking this picture of Sam cutting the last towel into five-inch strips with, as I say (and it bears repeating),
the sharp scissors
.

chapter 47
The Sharp Scissors—
a
User’s Guide
    The sharp scissors are so sharp that children under the age of eighteen are not allowed to touch them—
even
if they happen to find
the sharp scissors
in the middle of the living room floor standing on their head with the sharp end sticking up. *
    * WARNING: Children under the age of eighteen who touch
the sharp scissors
are subject to a maximum penalty of coming straight home from school every day for five years.

chapter 48
The Ins and Outs of
High-Quality
Fake Ermine Fur
Manufacturing
OR
What Exactly Moxy
Was Doing
    Shall I go into detail about how to make high-quality fake ermine fur out of white bathroom towels? Or is it so obvious it would be a bore? If you already know how to make fake ermine fur trim out of white guest towels, please skip this chapter and go to Chapter 49.
    Moxy Maxwell’s last-minute, high-quality fake ermine fur recipe:
    What you’ll need:
Two old white