Eggs with Legs Read Free Page A

‘kitten’!”
    “Somewhere where we can see him open it,” said Mary Beth. The girls thought.
    “How about in his bike saddlebag?” said Molly. “Or his backpack.”
    “His bike,” said Mary Beth. The girls ran to the bike rack. Roger’s bike was there! Its license plate said “Roger.” They popped the note into the saddlebag.
    Then they hid behind a tree till Roger came. He opened the bag to put his books in and saw the card. He didn’t open it. He just rode off toward home.
    “Rat’s knees!” said Molly. “He could have opened it so we could watch.”
    On the way home Molly felt let down. Their trick was over too soon and not very exciting.
    But when she got home she found out that the excitement was just beginning. Her mother had the phone in her hand.
    “It’s for you, Molly,” she said. “I believe it’s Roger White.”

CHAPTER 4
“Hi, Kitten”
    M olly stared at the phone in her mother’s hand.
Roger?
Why in the world would Roger call her at home? He never called her! Her stomach flip-flopped. His call had something to do with the April Fools’ trick. The trick had gone wrong! Molly took the phone and said, “Hello?”
    “Hi, kitten,” said Roger.
    “What did you say?” asked Molly. She must have heard him wrong!
    “Kitten. You said in your letter to call you ‘kitten,’ ”
    Molly’s stomach did another flip-flop. She had just told herself that the trick was boring. Well, it did not feel boring any longer! How did Roger know she had sent the letters? Could he read her mind? Had he traced her fingerprints on the notes?
    What could she say to him? If she denied she wrote the letters, it would be what her father called a bald-faced lie. She couldn’t keep lying.
    And if she said yes, that she wrote them, then she would have to claim she loved Roger! Was wild about him! That was a lie too! Of course she didn’t love him. She was too young to really have boyfriends. And when she was old enough, her boyfriend would be Jody, or Kevin. Never ever Roger! He was no one she would choose for a friend, let alone a boyfriend.
    Molly didn’t know what to do, so shehung up the phone. She called Mary Beth and told her the awful news.
    “How could he know it was you?” Mary Beth asked.
    Molly noticed that Mary Beth did not say “
us
.” She said “
you
”!
    “I don’t know!” cried Molly. “I just know I’m in trouble!”
    “Well, Roger doesn’t want a girlfriend, you can be sure of that,” said Mary Beth.
    But the next day at school it appeared that he did! And he wanted Molly!
    “Hey, you guys,” he said to everyone on the playground, “look at the love letters I got from Molly Duff! She wants to be my girlfriend. She wants me to call her ‘kitten.’ ”
    Everyone was reading the April Fools’ letters and laughing at her! Molly turned bright red and ran into the school. But that didn’t help. As the children came in, they all turned around and pointed at her. Molly would have to quit school and move away. That was all there was to it. She’d have to get out of town and start a new life.

    On the way home Roger followed her and Mary Beth and kept saying, “Hey, kitten, we have years together ahead of us!” Then he made a terrible kissing noise with his mouth that made Molly cringe. Molly made a resolution that she would never never never play another April Fools’ joke in her whole life. It was definitely not her favorite holiday anymore. Probably Mrs. Peters and the others were right—it had never been a holiday to begin with!
    Back at Molly’s the girls tried to think of what to do.
    “This is an emergency,” said Mary Beth.
    While they were thinking, the phonerang. Molly’s parents were not home, so Mary Beth answered it. She signaled to Molly that it was Roger. “How did you know it was Molly?” Mary Beth asked. Molly thought she could at least have said “
us
”!
    Mary Beth listened. Then she hung up. “He saw you from his bedroom window when you put the