The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline Read Online Free Page A

at that address. Probably it won't be a Poisoning Center, or anything. But there might be clues. Look for clues."
    "Gotcha. I'll call you back in, say, an hour or so."
    "Right."
    "Caroline," Stacy said ominously before she hung up, "if no one ever hears from me again, give that
address to the police, would you? They'll find my body there."
    "Right. But don't take any dangerous chances, Stacy."
    "I won't. But if after, oh, three days, say, I don't return—"
    "I will, Stacy. I promise. But be careful. Remember, it's
children
they're after."
    "I'll wear lipstick," said Stacy. "I got some Crimson Shadows lipstick at the drugstore, just for assignments like this."

    "Stacy's calling back in about an hour," said Caroline when she went to the kitchen for lunch. "She's doing some research for an assignment we have together."
    "Fine," said her mother cheerfully. "Want a pickle with your sandwich?"
    Caroline and J.P. each took a dill pickle.
    "The phone may not be working in an hour," announced Caroline's brother. "I'm going to do some experiments on it after lunch."
    "Don't. Touch. That. Phone," said Caroline angrily, with a mouth full of bologna sandwich.
    "She's absolutely right, James," said Mrs. Tate. "The phone company said they were going to charge for the repairs next time you experimented with the telephone."
    "Well," said J.P., chewing, "can I borrow your radio then? I need to experiment with
something.
"
    His mother sighed. "All right. You can use my radio. But don't wreck the alarm, okay? I can't be late to work Monday. I was late twice last week, once because you ruined my toothbrush, James—"
    "I had to clean the gunk out of my motor with
something,
" J.P. explained.
    "—and once because I couldn't find my pocketbook."
    Caroline sighed. "I already said I was sorry, Mom. I was examining the alligator skin under a magnifying glass, and somehow it ended up under a whole pile of stuff on my desk."
    "It isn't alligator, anyway. It's plastic. That pocketbook only cost fourteen dollars. If I lose my job because I'm late one more time, I won't even be able to afford a
plastic
pocketbook. I'll have to become a bag lady."
    "I'll support you in your old age, Mom," said Caroline. "After I'm a paleontologist, I'll send you a check every month, from Asia Minor or wherever I am."
    "Me too," said J.P. "When I'm an electrical engineer, I'll be really rich."
    "Maybe by then I will have married a millionaire," said their mother. "In the meantime, do either of you want another sandwich, bearing in mind that this bologna cost $1.89 a pound?"
    "Me," said J.P.
    "Pig," said Caroline sweetly, and ducked just in time to evade the dill pickle that her brother threw her.
    "Sometimes," sighed their mother, "I wish that I had remained childless."

    Back in her room, waiting for Stacy to call, Caroline curled up on her bed with her stuffed Stegosaurus. She began to think about dinosaurs in general, and about the particular contribution that she would make to science after she was a qualified paleontologist.
    Caroline had begun to develop the Tate Theory of Evolution. According to her theory, certain people alive in the twentieth century had not actually evolved very much from prehistoric times. Of course, they were disguised as civilized people, because they wore clothes and held jobs and went to school and did all the things that civilized people are supposed to do.
    But the man at the Laundromat was a good example. He really had been very much like the buck-toothed Apatosaurus, with his nose too high on his face. Fortunately, old Apatosaurus was weak and dumb and harmless; probably that man would go home from the laundry and eat some lettuce and cucumbers for lunch, since Apatosaurus was a plant-eater. He wasn't a danger to society, but he was a good example of Caroline's theory that some people are little more than barely evolved dinosaurs. She was surprised that no scientists had noticed it yet.
    James Priestly Tate, for example. Talk