Snow Globes and Hand Grenades Read Online Free

safety pin his pants legs for alteration.
    Mimi looked at the clock. “Can I go now?” she asked. She didn’t want to be late for her secret phone call with her boyfriend. “I have homework.”
    â€œHomework?” her father said. “I’m glad to hear you say the word. All right, you can go. And by the way, don’t mention your grades at the party.The boss’s daughter is also going to Holy Footsteps next fall, and I hear she’s getting straight A’s. No reason for you to feel any … less than her. As long as you’ve been accepted, that’s all that counts.”
    â€œWhat if they change their minds for some reason?” Mimi said. She was thinking of the fake letter that was coming.
    â€œOh, don’t say that,” Mrs. Maloney laughed.
    â€œThat’s right. You’re in,” Mr. Maloney said. “Holy Footsteps, and then college. We can afford that now. You’ve got a real future all of a sudden.”
    Mimi sighed and tried to sound happy. “Thanks, Dad.” She got up to go upstairs when her mother called out, “And don’t forget to brush your teeth, and throw your dirty clothes down the clothes chute and straighten up your room and…”
    With her mother’s voice fading in the crescendo of the Chopin concerto, Mimi reached the top of the stairs at precisely nine o’clock. The antique clock chimed, and she lifted the hallway princess phone off the hook and dialed Time and Temperature. Then she stretched the cord into her room to close the door and sat on her bed with the phone to her ear.
    â€œThank you for calling Community Federal Time and Temperature,” the recording said. Mimi started breathing faster. By dialing Time and Temperature, no one else in the house would hear the phone ring when her public school boyfriend called. The Maloney’s had the new Call Waiting system. All Mimi had to do was wait for the beep-beep, then click over to get the incoming call in secret. That’s what she had been doing for months and she hadn’t been caught yet. But lately—for the past nine days to be exact—there was nothing to get caught about. For some reason her boyfriend had stopped calling. Maybe tonight was the night. Yes, she could feel it. Tonight, he was going to call again and apologize and tell her he loved her. She could feel that phone call coming. He was probably dialing right now. She waited and listened for the beep-beep to interrupt the Time and Temperature recording.
    â€œDo you need a loan for an engagement ring? At Community Federal, we can help…”
    But there was no beep-beep. She felt her eyes getting wet as she looked around the room at her unmade bed, the Almond Joy wrapper, the pile of 45s by her Close and Play record player, the
Seventeen
Magazine on the floor, the cluttered desk with a brass lamp shining on the black typewritershe had used to type the fake letter from Holy Footsteps Academy. She grabbed the letter from under her pillow eager to read it to her boyfriend, like a love letter.
    Dear Mr. and Mrs. Maloney,
    We are writing to let you know your daughter can’t come to our school after all. It seems we admitted too many girls and won’t be able to fit them all in our classrooms. It would be too crowded and your daughter wouldn’t be happy or able to learn right. The good news is we have checked with Webster High School, which is a really good school for girls and boys, and they have plenty of extra desks on hand. We know that Mimi will enjoy her high school years there and save you a lot of money you would have spent with us on tuition. Thanks for understanding, and please don’t call us about this, because everyone is very busy at this time and our decision is final.
    Sincerely,
    Sister Jeanne Flourie, Principal
    Holy Footsteps Academy
    The Time and Temperature recording got near the end. “The time is 9:01. Downtown temperature 66