Addison Addley and the Things That Aren't There Read Free Page B

even list all the characters in all the space movies ever made.
    â€œRight, something like that,” Miss Steane said. She switched to her normal voice.
    â€œIn other words,” she continued, “let’s liven things up. We don’t want this to be a boring assignment. Have a bit of fun with it. That way, hopefully, no one has to be nervous.”
    That was a lot easier said than done. We only had one week until we started giving our speeches. Sam had told me that almost everyone already had theirsmemorized. I hadn’t even written mine yet. I kind of have this habit of putting things off until the last minute. Things turn out better that way. I think. Like the time I returned a new video game to the corner store just at the last minute. It was due at noon. I got to the door at 11:59. Good thing I did. If I had been there any earlier, I might have ended up in jail. It turns out that Sam’s grandma had accidentally let her dog loose in the store. He’d knocked over two racks of potato chips and three jars of jelly beans. I don’t think I would have been able to resist taking some free samples off the floor if I’d been there. Then I might have gotten arrested. Yep, being there just at the last minute worked for me that day.
    Miss Steane smiled. “After the speeches are over on Wednesday, we’re going to have a ‘speeches are over, middle of the week’ party. We’ll present the favorite speech trophy and have some food and games. Don’t forget; try to make your speech entertaining. We’ll all vote for our favorite speech right before the party.”
    Everyone volunteered to bring stuff. I was going to bring the almonds from the stash I had stored for the squirrels, but I decided not to. The squirrels deserved them. When I found out Mrs. Wilson was organizing the party, I knew what I had to do. Mrs. Wilson wason the astronomy board. Mrs. Wilson loved to cook and eat. She also loved to try new recipes. Mrs. Wilson needed to find out about Mom’s prize-winning healthy cooking. Well, maybe not prize-winning, but incredibly healthy.
    That was my plan. I’d impress her with Mom’s famous organic fruit punch. Technically it was called a fruit smoothie, but I preferred to call it punch. Smoothie sounds too much like baby food. Mrs. Wilson would be begging for the recipe and then begging my mom for more ideas. She’d vote for Mom for sure. I just love the way things fall into place sometimes. But I couldn’t put my plan into action right away. I had more important things to do. It was Monday afternoon and that meant fishing. The creek is deserted on Monday afternoons. The fish like it that way. They like us too; we hadn’t caught anything in two years. They were safe with us.
    Sam was hopping up and down when I met him after school. He held open a battered old book from the library.
    â€œAtoms,” he said.
    â€œAdam’s what?” I asked. I didn’t even know an Adam, except for the short guy on the baseball team last year.
    â€œAtoms—like in science. They’re the smallest thing you can imagine. Scientists base a lot of physics theories on them, but you can’t see them, not even with a microscope. They think they’re there because of the reactions of the stuff around them. An atom is a thing that isn’t there, but it really is.”
    Sam looked proud of himself. “Wormholes,” he said triumphantly.
    Sam was thinking too much. We didn’t have to dig wormholes; we were buying bait at the store. I tapped him on the shoulder. “Look,” I pointed out. “We don’t have shovels. We’re buying our worms today, remember?”
    â€œWormholes, like in astronomy. Your mom would like this one. Some people believe that there are these things called wormholes. They’re like invisible passageways to different parts of the universe and different times, sort of like time traveling. You