Maniac Monkeys on Magnolia Street & When Mules Flew on Magnolia Street Read Online Free Page A

non-bone bag was filling up, and I noticed that Billy was smiling. Sometimes you just have to bring out the digger in some people.
    Just as I was starting to get a little worried 'cause we hadn't run into any bones yet, I hit something with the little hand shovel I had. Itook a while to dig it up 'cause I didn't want to wreck any of it.
    I'd found something better than a saber-tooth.
    It was a pumpkin box.
    It was metal and square, and somebody had pasted paper pumpkins all over it.
    Billy said, “Can we open it?”
    “I don't know.”
    “Try.”
    So I did. I just wiggled the lock a little and it opened right up.
    And the things inside. I knew then that to be a digger was probably to be one of the most exciting things in the world.
    Me and Billy sat side by side and stared at the pumpkin box. Most of the pumpkins had fallen off, but there were a couple left. Inside, there was magic.
    Billy looked at me and smiled.
    I looked at him and smiled.
    The first thing we found in the box was a yo-yo.
    It was red and wooden.
    We laid it out beside the pumpkin box. We didn't want to put it in the non-bone bag.
    Next we found three nickels tied up in a handkerchief. They had buffaloes on them.
    After that, we found an old watch. It didn't run.
    The only way you could tell we liked everything we found was when we'd say, “Wow.” And we said that a lot.
    Underneath that, we found a book. It had cowboys on the front of it. The pages were falling apart and we were afraid to open it too much, so we laid it down gently beside the other stuff.
    The next thing we found was a note. It was wrapped in wax paper. Billy handed it to meto read, since I was the main digger. The note said:
    Whoever finds this box must share it. It doesn h matter who you share it with. When you have shared the things in this box, you must put your own treasures in it and bury it again.
    Signed,
Tracy and David
    The note was brown and falling apart.
    And in the bottom of the box was a picture of two kids dressed in funny clothes. The picture was old and a little blurry, but you could still see the kids, and they were smiling.
    Billy pointed at the picture, then pointed at my house across the street. Sure enough,there was my tree and house right there in the picture. There is nothing like digging…
    We put all the pumpkin box stuff back in the box and loaded up to go home.
    Billy thought I should keep the pumpkin box and he should keep the spoons until we figured out what we should do with them.
    I slept that night with the pumpkin box right beside my turtle night-light.
    I dreamed of Tracy and David. I dreamed that they liked the things that me and Billy liked and did the things that me and Billy did.
    Maybe they were diggers, too. One of them must have been, because the box was buried to be dug up. In my dreams, they ran alongside me and Billy. We ate ice cream at Mo's and played and raced around the block for hours. They also got separated a lot and had to go to porch time-out for the whole afternoon.
    The next morning, Billy was at my door.
    “So who have you been thinking about giving the pumpkin box stuff to?”
    I stuffed a doughnut in my mouth and handed Billy one, too. We munched and thought.
    It was going to take us a while to think.
    We decided to walk around with the box and figure it out. We walked up and down Magnolia Street. We looked at the street like we never had before. Who would we give the pumpkin box treasures to?
    I said, “Magnolia Street must have been here a long time. My mom says that the picture in the box is probably sixty years old.”
    Billy said, “I don't think I know anybody that old. Do I?”
    All of a sudden Billy got a big smile on his face, grabbed my hand, and started running toward Mr. Pinkton's. Mr. Pinkton was out in his yard with his roses.
    Billy took the watch out of the pumpkin box and handed it to Mr. Pinkton.
    “For you,” Billy said, and then grabbed me by the hand and ran away. Then he stopped and called to Mr.