Paint Me a Monster Read Online Free Page A

please get up. The floor is dirty.”
    “I’m a starfish.”
    “Starfish live in the ocean. Are you in the ocean?”
    “No, Mommy, you’re silly.”
    She puts her tiger top on and tucks it into her brown skirt. “Up, Rinnie. Time to go.”
    I wave good-bye to the queens and kings and scramble to my feet. I want to hold Mommy’s hand, but it’s lost under the pile of clothes in her arms. They are the same colors as the leaves on our trees.
    “You look like fall,” I say.
    At the pay counter, we have to wait for two ladies who are in front of us. Their clothes look like autumn, too.
    “How much longer, Mommy? I want to go. I’m hungry.”
    “Hush.”
    Mommy’s voice isn’t nice. It feels like being stuck by the queen pin. I squat like a jack-in-the box waiting to pop out and count, one, two, three, four. . . . When it’s our turn, the lady behind the counter won’t stop talking, and Mommy won’t stop listening. She doesn’t feel my tugs on her coat, and when I pinch her ankle, her happy blouse smile is gone. The lines between her eyes frown.
    “What is it you want? Can’t you be still for a minute? All these pretty things to look at and you have to misbehave.”
    “I want to go. I’m hungry.”
    “Then go. Find a place to play over there,” she points. I look to see where there is, but Mommy’s talking again.
    Across the aisle, a man plays a piano and pushes pedals with his foot. Maybe he’ll let me play. When I get close, he winks and makes his fingers run from one end of the piano to the other, pressing only the white parts. Plink goes the last white note. Plink, plink, plink.
    “Can I do that?” I ask and hold up my pointer finger.
    “When you get bigger you can take piano lessons, and then you can do this, too.” He zips his fingers across the white keys. “It’s time for my break.”
    I watch him zipper past the long dresses. He stops and looks at a tag on one of them. The dress sparkles like a glitter star with a necklace of feathers. This is what the pin-queen would wear if she were real. I squeeze my eyes as tight as I can, hold my breath, and make a wish on the glitter star dress.
I wish I were a queen. Then Mommy would have to listen to me.
    I open my eyes. The piano man floats by going higher and higher until he disappears.
Where did he go?
I march behind a wall of clothes and see the moving stairs that floated the piano man away.
Mommy and I rode the stairs when we came to the store.
I take a step before the stair moves too far away and squat on it. I have never done this without Mommy
.
Up I go and then down. And up and down again. I have to show Mommy I found the place “over there” to sit and play. Her pin voice will unstick. On the down floor, I look for the lady at the pay counter.
    “Where’s Mommy?”
    “Who is your Mommy?” the lady asks. She bends down. The air smells like old oranges and cinnamon.
    “She’s the lady you talked to for a long time. She smells like flowers.”
    The pay lady holds my hand, asks my name, and makes a phone call. I hear my name run across the air.
    “Your Mommy will be here soon. Why don’t you draw while we wait?” She hands me a pen and some paper. I kneel on the floor and draw the moving stairs.
    When Mommy comes, her hands tighten white under my shoulders. Up I go, then down. Mommy presses me hard, squishing my head into my neck. When I land, my school shoes pinch my toes.
    “But Mommy,” I say when I catch my breath. “I found the over there place to sit and play!”

GRANDMA GARDENER
    Grandma Gardener has a fire in her house.
    “Don’t go near this, girls,” she says to Liz and me. “It burns up little children like you.”
    The fire is in her kitchen, and she calls it the incinerator. The drive to her house is long, but we don’t mind. It’s our last fun summer thing before first grade starts. We count trains, tracks, and bridges, and wave good-bye to Ohio when we cross into Pennsylvania. When we finally arrive, Grandma