The Sugar Mountain Snow Ball Read Online Free Page B

I were sprawled on the couch, watching The Price Is Right. The reruns of the original version are shown every day from three to five p.m. on channel 6. The old ones hosted by Bob Barker are, in my opinion, far better than the newer versions . And the prices don’t make sense anyway, whether the show was filmed thirty years ago or yesterday. I don’t know where the contestants do their shopping, but Mim says everything is wacky out in California, where they play the game, which is probably why the prices are nothing like ours.
    The three of us were hanging out as usual, gobbling down yesterday’s leftover Monster Chunk cookies from the Slope Side Café, since it was almost dinnertime and we were practically starving to death. Mrs. Petite had been taking a nap when I picked up the twins, because her tooth ached from whatever the dentist had done. And Mr. Petite was busy painting his duck decoys on the dining-room table, so the boys hadn’t eaten a thing since lunch other than butter cream mints from the candy bowl. And, of course, Eleanor and I never had gotten to The Avalanche for that mocha ripple milkshake.
    â€œTwo seventy-five is wrong! Three ninety-eight is the correct answer!” yelled Bob Barker as the too bad music played on the TV. “Oh, too bad , Louise—but thanks for playing.”
    â€œThree ninety-eight?” I complained out loud. “Where do they buy their pretzels? At the jewelry store?”
    That made the twins crack up and repeat my words. They were always copying everything I said.
    â€œI don’t want any more cookies,” announced Charlie, who was stretched out in Pop’s recliner, having won the honor five minutesearlier by beating Henry at stuffing the most Monster Chunks in his mouth. “I want egg rolls!”
    â€œWe’re not having Chinese take-out for dinner tonight,” I said, and sat up, which startled our old cat, Marilyn Monroe. She jumped to the ground and wandered off to the other end of the house in search of quiet. “Mim said she’d pick up fried chicken for a change.”
    Charlie whined, “I don’t like chicken,” just as my stepmom burst through the front door, toting about thirteen bags. She can carry more plastic grocery sacks than any other human on earth. No matter how many are in the car, she never makes more than one trip lugging them into the house.
    â€œToo late, sweetie,” said Mim as she dumped everything, including two greasy cardboard buckets, onto our kitchen table. “I have enough chicken here to feed the whole neighborhood.”
    Henry leaned forward and scratched himself all over, the deep-fried smell waking him like an alarm clock.
    My stepmom smiled like always, but I could tell she was tired.
    â€œI’ll get the soda,” I offered, as Mim lowered herself into a kitchen chair and sighed.
    â€œThanks, Rosebud—and turn the channel to Hollywood Crime Watch , would you please?”
    She didn’t even put the groceries away, just shoved them aside, and then pulled out the take-out paper plates, plastic forks and knives, and a pile of napkins. Both boys dug into supper like they hadn’t eaten in days.
    â€œSo what did you kids do this afternoon?” asked Mim, frosting a biscuit with butter before sliding it into her mouth.
    Right then, I worried the boys would blurt out something about their visit to the dentist with Mrs. Petite, but they were so busy chomping, they didn’t hear a thing.
    â€œNothing much—the usual,” I replied, even though I was dying to tell her all about the mysterious Madame M and our psychic readings.
    But my stepmother would have wondered why I was off running around town and not home watching the boys, which would have involved confessing my frequent tardiness, where it all began. Also, I wasn’t so sure she would agree with the way I saw my reading, which had me so excited that I couldn’t wait to see Eleanor