Rebel McKenzie Read Online Free Page A

talk and everything. But he’s really asleep. That’s not all.” She took a deep breath. “He has lunch with God.”
    I dropped the frying pan I was drying. It hit the floor with a clatter. “Do I set three places at the table?”
    â€œDon’t act smart. Hand me that skillet so I can wash it again. When it’s nice out, Rudy eats his lunch on the porch steps. And, well…he talks to God.”
    â€œAbout what?” I wiped a glass calmly but my stomach quivered.
    â€œSometimes stuff he’s worried about. Sometimes just about the weather.”
    The weather. My nephew discussed the weather with God. I wondered if Rudy ever asked Him to make it snow so he could get a day off from school.
    â€œWhat do you want me to do?” I asked.
    â€œIt might be a phase. Just don’t make a big deal out of it, okay?”
    Well, at least now I wouldn’t have to worry about what I’d say to a seven-year-old all summer. Apparently God would take up the conversational slack.
    Lynette had to get up early for her first day at Dot’s Pink Palace Beauty Academy. She put Rudy in the tub while she redid her nails. I leafed through my How and Why Wonder Book of Prehistoric Mammals , but I was so tired, I kept reading the same sentence over and over.
    Rudy came out of the bathroom in checkered-flag underpants, damp-haired and smelling of Prell. When he saw me, he screeched and ran into his room.
    â€œDon’t peek! I’m in my birthday suit!”
    â€œNot quite. Put your pj’s on and hop in bed, Popkin,” Lynette called after him, waving her hands to dry her nails. “Don’t forget your cuddly.”
    At last Rudy was in bed, wearing NASCAR pajamas and clasping a plastic truck that didn’t look very cuddly to me.
    Lynette kissed him fifty times and pulled the covers up to his chin even though it was a hundred and ten degrees. “Nighty-night, Sugar Pie. Don’t let the bedbugs bite. See you in the morning, Rebel.”
    â€œYeah.” I had already changed the bandages on my heels and slipped into my sleep shirt. Lynette cut the light as I slid between the sheets.
    And sank into a deep trough.
    The bed was a canoe. I couldn’t roll out of the hole!
    â€œRebel?” Rudy said from across the room (only a few inches away). “Will you keep that bully away from me?”
    â€œWhat bully?” How come Lynette didn’t tell me about that ?
    â€œThe one next door. I’m scared to go near their house.”
    â€œDon’t worry. I’ll take care of any bully.” It was probably some boy a year or so older than Rudy. I’d fix his little red wagon pretty fast.
    â€œRebel?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œWill you let me sleep with your elephant sometimes?”
    â€œTusky? He’s not an elephant. He’s a woolly mammoth.…That’s a kind of elephant that lived thousands of years ago.” I could hear Rudy waiting for my answer. “I guess so. Sometimes.”
    â€œTomorrow?”
    â€œMaybe.” I hoped he would drop off, so I kept quiet.
    Within a few minutes, Rudy’s breathing grew even. I lay awake and sweat. It was like trying to sleep in a bread box. I wondered what to do with a funeral-outfit-shopping, sleepwalking, lunch-with-God-sharing seven-year-old all day, every day, for eight weeks. Then I fell asleep too.
    * * *
    â€œOhhh, the night they drove Old Dixie doownnn…”
    I sat up in the dark. What the heck was that eerie sound?
    â€œâ€¦and all the people were singing…”
    It was Rudy, singing “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” in a high-pitched, quavery voice. He was asleep! The notes were off-key, but he got all the words right.
    This was too much. I decided to go to the bathroom. Maybe Rudy’s solo would be finished by the time I got back. I heaved myself out of the canoe-bed and inched toward the door.
    â€œOw!” Naturally I cracked my