The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp Read Online Free Page A

did,” I explained, “in
Hamlet,
Act Two.”
    “Nevertheless,” she said, “it seems to hit the nail right on the head.” She pushed paper and an ink pen across the desk at me. “I’ll be much obliged if you’d just copy out those words. I would like them for . . . my scrapbook of Beautiful Thoughts.”
    She grew shifty-eyed then as people will when they’re lying.
    The bell rang just as I finished my copy work. I was ready to scoot, but Miss Fuller looked up in a dreamy way, saying, “You are a strange child, Blossom, and not a promising physical specimen. Still, you are somehow sympathetic.”
    “Many thanks,” I told her, as these were the first halfway civil words I’d heard in high school. Then I cut out.
    The schoolyard was emptying when I stepped out into the afternoon sunshine. There, at the foot of the steps, stubbing his toe in the earth, was Alexander Armsworth. Reminding myself how Miss Fuller could make a fool of herself over the male sex, Imeant to breeze past him in case he had no greeting for me. But he did.
    “Well, Blossom, you’ve put your foot in it again with that tall tale about your so-called aunt getting her ring finger gnawed off.”
    With so much on my mind, I’d nearly forgotten history class until this rude reminder. Alexander smoothed the front of his argyle sweater and expanded his chest to its limit.
    “Now that we’re in high school,” he said, “we’re not kids who’ll swallow everything we’re told.”
    “Is that a fact?” I retorted. His voice had changed some more over the summer, and he clearly liked the sound of it. I lit into him.
    “Alexander, I’ve had it up to here with lectures. You’re sounding more like Letty Shambaugh every minute, and it’ll be a cold day in you-know-where when I need advice from either one of you.”
    I felt my face heat up, though I’d meant to keep calm. A person can take only so much.
    “I’m only speaking for your own good, Blossom. And of course, on behalf of the freshman class.” He pointed to his beanie. Being provoked, I scanned the ground for a rock big enough to lay across the side of his head. But there’s never one when you need it.
    “Some friend you turned out to be, Alexander,” I said, more in sorrow than in anger. “Here I am just coming out of Miss Fuller’s locker room with some real interesting news I might be willing to share. But all you can do is carp and complain. I suppose you were hanging around just to put me in my place.”
    Alexander cast his eyes to the sky. “Don’t flatter yourself, Blossom. I’m hanging around because we’re going to have a meeting of freshman class officers.”
    “You and Letty are getting too thick to stir,” I remarked.
    Alexander spoke then of what he called “the entire slate of officers.” Letty had appointed Harriet Hochhuth secretary, Ione Williams treasurer, and Tess and Bess Beasley sergeants at arms.
    “Trust Letty to make officers out of her whole club,” I said. “And what business do you have to conduct anyhow?”
    Alexander drew himself up importantly. “One item of business is the Halloween Festival, when each class holds a fund-raising event. Us officers have got to come up with a crackerjack event for Halloween night to show the entire school there are no flies on the freshman class.”
    “Is that a fact?” I replied, as this was the first I’d heard of the so-called Halloween Festival. “It sounds to me like the school’s trying to keep us busy on Halloween night so certain parties I could name won’t get up to mischief and outright vandalism.”
    “That kind of Halloweening is kid stuff, Blossom.” Alexander spoke in his deepest voice.
    “Then you’ve come a long way from last Halloween, when you and Bub Timmons and Champ Ferguson and Les Dawson came to considerable grief when you tried to turn over Old Man Leverette’s privy.”
    Alexander’s ears went pink. He pushed right past me up the steps to his freshman officers’