Paint Me a Monster Read Online Free Page B

gives us shiny dimes to stack and spin.
    “Thirty dimes for three children, how many dimes do each of you get?” She asks. Lizzie and I make three piles of dimes and count out the dimes and then help Evan make his piles.
    “Ten,” we shout.
    “Well done,” Grandma says.
    Behind Grandma’s house is the School for the Blind. I can see it from the bedroom I share with Liz. At night, the lights in the spooky brick building of the blind school stare at us through the window. I hear the soft music that rides the sky all the way from the blind school to my ears.
    At bedtime, Grandma doesn’t say much about the school when we ask. Instead, she hands us each a glass of milk with a piece of chocolate in the bottom and tells us to drink for sweet dreams. Liz and I always drink the milk. Evan is in a different room, but I think he drinks his milk, too.
    “Charles, Charles,” Grandma Gardener calls when she wants my father. Everyone else calls him Chuck. Her words are sharp like her laugh, and she mostly talks to Mom when something has to be done. “Rose, bring in the suitcases. Rose, take the children to wash their hands.”
    Mommy said one time Grandma visited our house. It was very late at night and she heard Grandma call, “Rose, Rose, I need a towel.” Mommy pretended to be asleep, but Grandma Gardener wouldn’t stop calling, “Rose, Rose.”
    Finally, Mommy got up and asked Grandma why she didn’t call her son.
    “What, and wake him?” Grandma said.
    Mommy got Grandma the towel. “Witch,” Mommy grumbled.
    Grandma Gardener looks like the witches in my fairy tale book, with her black eyes, long gray hair, and big curved nose. But I don’t think witches give money to kids.

GETTING READY
    “Liz, Margo, Evan, this is Ward Brenner. He’s a student at the seminary college. Ward will drive you to school and pick you up. Ward, these are my children.”
    “It’s Rinnie, not Margo! My friends call me Rinnie,” I say, bending my neck up as far as it will go to see Ward’s face.
    He sticks his hand out to shake mine and a silver bracelet with a fish on it slides to his palm.
    “Nice to meet you, Ma . . . Rinnie,” he stutters.
    Ward unfolds a piece of paper from his pocket. “Looks like after I pick you three up I stop at the Myer house a few doors down and pick up Marty, Maddox, and Marcie June.”
    The Myers have five kids, but the other two are too old for our school. Marcie June Myer is my best after-school friend because she lives so close to me. She wears her hair in a pony, too. Everyone in her family has a name that begins with the letter M, including her dogs, Moses and Max. Even her maid’s name starts with an M. I like that in my family we have different letters for our names, and I get two if I want. One letter for Margo and one for Rinnie.

LOOKING
    Today at Gaga’s, Lizzie and I play our special kind of hide-and-seek. We seek what’s hiding in the cabinet above the toilet in Gaga and Pop Pop’s bathroom. The cabinet is built into the wall. It’s so deep I can barely reach the back of it even when I stand on the toilet and stretch my body.
    “Be careful to put everything back just where you get it,” Lizzie says as she watches me pick up a handful of hair clips and a ruffled shower cap.
    I hand her bottles of nail polish, a used-up emery board, and squares of cotton.
    “Maybe Gaga will give us manicures,” Lizzie says.
    I shrug my shoulders and move to a higher shelf. There are long stretchy bandages rolled up, boxes of gauze, scissors, a gold razor, egg-shaped bars of soap, and a container of pink perfumed powder.
    “Mmmm, smell this,” I say and pass the round box of pink powder to Liz.
    “Smells like jelly beans taste,” Liz says.
    “How ’bout these?” I hand Liz a basket filled with medicines for stomach discomfort, headaches, and “Loose Stools.”
    “No thanks,” Lizzie says. “Looks too doctor-y. Can you see what’s on the top shelf?”
    I stretch my legs as far as I can