My Miserable Life Read Online Free Page A

look just like her, each one year older and one head taller than the next, with big, perfectly round blue eyes and long blond hair.
    Their parents let them have parties, watch TV all the time, and eat as much candy as they want. Obviously their house is a perfect place to hang out at on Halloween. There’s no so-called Halloween Fairy there to steal your hard-earned Halloween candy. Not like at my house, where she lurks in the corners, ready and waiting with her dreaded Lurning Bush school-supply store gift certificates to trade for your candy.
    First of all, you can’t make up for stolen candy with school supplies, and second of all, why would you misspell the name of a place where kids were supposed to go to learn? The little buddies would get confused. And what did that name mean, anyway?
    Just then, my mom came out of her room wearing THE WINGS.
    One Halloween she’d dressed up as a fairy with these big wings that looked like the feathers came from real pigeons, a wreath of fake pink flowers on her head, and an old lace dress that kept getting tangled and torn on the branches when she took me out trick-or-treating. She had to turn sideways to let the kids pass her on the sidewalk because the wings were so huge. One year she was an angel wearing the same wings. One year she was a butterfly. Yep, same pigeon-feather wings.
    And this year she had on an orange-and-black outfit with orange-and-black-striped stockings and the same wings.
    â€œGuess who I am?” my mom asked.

    She was the Halloween Fairy, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
    â€œAre you ready?”
    I didn’t want to go trick-or-treating with her, but it would have been worse to stay home and give out candy to Rocko Hoggen and Leif Zuniga and Serena Perl, who were probably all trick-or-treating together dressed in matching zombie outfits. So I made my mom promise to keep her distance and pretend she wasn’t with me if we ran into anyone I knew.
    Before we left, Monkeylad was having one of his demon possessions. His eyes were rolling up in his head and had turned blue.
    â€œWe need to exercise the demon so he doesn’t attack trick-or-treaters at the door,” I told my mom.
    â€œYou mean exorcise?” she said, laughing.
    â€œThat’s what I said,” I said.
    She bent down really slowly, holding out a Chix Stix treat, caught Monkeylad, and Velcroed on his hot-dog bun. As soon as it was on, he sat down and looked up at her with twinkling black puppy eyes. It was like magic.
    â€œThis hot-dog bun was worth the investment,” my mom said. Monkeylad had worn it a few times already, but it was harder to put on now since he’d gotten a little chubby around the middle.

    I had to admit, he did look kind of cute as a hot dog. And it would be much harder for him to escape and steal meat while wearing that thing.
    Our neighborhood was lit up with orange jack-o’-lantern lights, and there were vats of dry ice and dangling skeletons and blow-up witches and cobwebs getting caught over my mouth, and it was all pretty cool, in spite of my mom’s wings and my dog in his too-small bun.
    As I was walking along the street, I saw Joe Knapp from school. Joe Knapp wears big glasses with thick lenses. His name is embroidered on his jackets and his backpack. His lunch box and backpack match; they are both in the shape of books. So I wasn’t surprised to see that for Halloween he was dressed as a dictionary. His dad was dressed as a giant baby in fuzzy footsie pajamas. I didn’t feel as embarrassed about my mom’s wings after that. Joe waved to me but then ducked his head, maybe when he realized that I was looking at his dad.

    I filled a pillowcase with candy and was really excited to go home and eat some. I figured my mom might be nicer this year, because of all the hardship I had recently endured, and maybe let me eat a few extra pieces and keep the rest for the following weekends. Actually, if we