The Good, the Bad & the Beagle Read Online Free Page B

seemed both proud and miserable watching it all get eaten in a matter of minutes.
    “How was school, honey?” her father asked. Veronica took the glasses to the table.
    “Good luck getting anything out of her,” her mother said, patting her daughter’s hair as she walked by.
    “Fine. My uniform is too long. My teacher is nice. The kids don’t care I’m alive.”
    “Fine is good!” her father said.
    “ No , Daddy,” Veronica said. “Fine is not good. Fine is fine. Which is much less than good.” The buzzer rang and the night doorman announced the deliveryman. Praise Hunan Delight. They would all be sitting down to eat any minute.
    As always, Mr. Morgan took care of the transaction with the deliveryman at the door to their apartment, toting several shopping bags to the dinner table.
    “Did you get any work done today, Marvin?” his wife asked. “You’ve got to write your conclusion. How is Mrs. Kreller? Did you take my notes?” She unpacked the Chinese food containers and helped herself to chicken with yellow leeks. Veronica couldn’t have asked for them to get to Mrs. Kreller any faster—it was almost too good to be true!
    “Well,” her father said, sitting at the table, “I did, but honestly Mrs. Kreller is a mercurial woman. I may have to revise. One minute her emotions are the source of her anxiety and the next her psoriasis is the root of everything.”
    Which came first, the anxiety or the rash? The Morgan family spent many evenings discussing things like this, like Greek philosophers debating paradox.
    “Every time I’ve gotten her to acknowledge her withholding husband, she changes the subject to the humiliation of her skin condition,” her father continued. “It’s giving me a rash,” he said, laughing at his own joke.
    Veronica and her mother looked at each other in silent agreement that the joke teller was often funnier than the jokes he told. Marvin Morgan continued, “She is turning out to be a very unreliable patient. Like Cricket Cohen was an unreliable friend.”
    “Daddy, Cricket was a reliable friend,” Veronica said. She was annoyed. Cricket Cohen wasn’t part of the plan.
    “Oh. I apologize. I was under the impression your friendship caused you distress,” Mr. Morgan said while looking at Mrs. Morgan.
    Her parents, whose living depended on just how complicated the human psyche was, were so eager for her to label Cricket a good friend or a bad friend. They should know her friendship with Cricket wasn’t all good or all bad. She’d known Cricket her whole life and their friendship had always been less than simple.
    “It does cause anxiety,” Veronica said. Anxiety could totally be part of phase one. She decided to run with it. “But it’s not her fault, she just has the kind of family that always does things, so she’s really busy,” Veronica said. “And then I can’t tell if she’s just busy or she doesn’t like me.” Veronica chewed, carefully reviewing the key parts of her plan.
    “What kind of things?”
    “You know, like apple picking and going to the opera, traveling. They’re just always super busy,” Veronica said. “Whereas I have the kind of family that never does anything except read and maybe go to the farmers’ market.” Even though all this talk about Cricket might contribute to her parents feeling bad for her, it was time to rein it in. “Cadbury has hot spots. Again. Please pass the dumplings.”
    Veronica loved how nonchalantly she’d said that. They would never suspect she was up to something.
    “Here, lovey. And have some string beans, would you? They’re a little spicier than usual but yummy.”
    “Do you think Cadbury’s embarrassed by his hot spots?” Mr. Morgan said. Mrs. Morgan spooned a pile of vegetables on her daughter’s plate.
    “No,” Veronica said, “but I do think he is miserable . And lonely . He has to stay by himself in the back until they’re better. Plus, I’m sure the lonelier he is, the worse his