The Pinballs Read Online Free Page A

sensed. They were for the doctor and the pretty nurse and especially for the police who were charging him with drunken driving. Harvey had lain there and not shed a tear.
    Now suddenly he wished he could cry. Quickly he crumpled his blank paper. “I don’t feel like writing letters.”
    Thomas J hovered over his paper. He had lived with the Benson twins for as long as he could remember, but he couldn’t think of anything to write to them. All he still had was “How are your hips?” He lifted his head. “Can you send off a letter with just one sentence in it?” he asked.
    â€œNo,” Carlie said, “you got to have two. We learned that in English.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œYou can always end by saying ‘There’s a wonderful girl here named Carlie who is just like a sister to me.’” She turned to look at him. “Who’s this letter going to, anyway?”
    â€œThe Benson twins.”
    â€œBoys?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOh, wrong sex,” Carlie said, turning back to her letter.
    â€œThey’re eighty-eight.”
    â€œWrong age too.”
    â€œNext year, if they live, they may get to be in the Book of World Records .”
    â€œMe too,” Carlie said. “If I live I’ll be the most shifted around juvenile in the world.” Carlie finished her letter, ending it with twelve “pleases,” all underlined. She put it in an envelope and sealed it. “Well, that’s that.” She looked around to see whom she could pester.
    Harvey was writing at last. He had given up on a letter, but Carlie had given him an idea when she mentioned a list about herself. Now he was making a list about himself. The list was entitled “Bad Things That Have Happened to Me.”
    Number one was “Appendectomy.”
    â€œWhat are you writing?” Carlie asked, sensing it was something secret. She darted over to take a look. She knew that because of his broken legs, he couldn’t get out of the way.
    Harvey put the list against his chest. “It’s none of your business.”
    â€œEverything I’m interested in is my business.” She snatched the list from his hand. She read it aloud. “Appendectomy.” She looked up. “Hey, have you really had an appendectomy?”
    â€œYes.”
    Carlie’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “How big’s your scar?”
    â€œAbout that long.”
    â€œI knew it!” she cried. “You know what somebody told me one time? He told me that doctors make real tiny slits and then pull all your guts outside and hold them up to the light so they can work better.” She paused. She was delighted. “Which is probably true! And you know how Dr. Welby and all those TV doctors make incisions! The incisions are that long—fourteen, fifteen inches maybe. They ought to talk to this friend of mine.”
    She handed the list back to Harvey. It fluttered to his lap like an old leaf.
    Carlie said, “I’m going to make some lists about myself. Mine’s going to be called ‘Big Events and How I Got Cheated out of Them.’”
    Carlie leaned back on the sofa and began to count off the bad times on her fingers. “Number one—and this really was a cheat—I was going to be a majorette in Junior High. I even went to Majorette Clinic. Cost my mom fifteen dollars, and then I come to find out that you couldn’t even try out if you didn’t have good grades. And what does good grades have to do with twirling a baton—tell me that?” She looked from Harvey to Thomas J, whose mouth was hanging open. “What do two E’s in English and World Studies and one D-minus in Math have to do with twirling a baton?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Thomas J said. It was the first time he had spoken softly since he had arrived.
    â€œAnd then you know what happened? I was all set to try out for Miss Teenaged Lancaster. My