The Life of Ty: Penguin Problems Read Free Page A

funny.”
    I let go. My cheeks get hot.
    On the TV, the piano lid flattens Tom, and his paws and whiskers and tail stick out like a pancake. Mom is missing the good part, and she doesn’t even care.
    â€œI’ll bring Maggie down here,” Mom says. “I’ll keep watching Bugs Bunny while I feed her.”
    It’s not Bugs Bunny. It’s Tom and Jerry! And Tom is so silly, and Jerry is so cute and little, and—
    Never mind. Jerry’s not cute, and I don’t even like him. I never liked him. I grab the remote and turn off the TV.
    From the baby monitor, I hear Mom get closer and closer to Teensy Baby Maggie’s room. Then she’s in there for real. I hear her say, “Hey there, Teense. How’s my baby? How’s my teensy bitsy Maggie-pie?”
    Next come crinkle-sheet sounds, which mean Mom’s lifting Maggie out of her crib. “Come on, bug. That’s my good girl.”
    My chest goes up and down. I’m her bug. She’s only supposed to call me “bug.” And I don’t like how Mom has to run run run to Maggie the very second she cries, either.
    Also, Maggie’s not as bitsy as everyone thinks. Spiders are bitsy, like the itsy-bitsy spider. Flies are bitsy. Jerry from Tom and Jerry is bitsy, but Maggie doesn’t even know who Tom and Jerry are. She doesn’t even know what cartoons are—and she made Mom miss the best piano-slamming part!
    If someone made me miss the best part, I’d be mad and call that person a meanie-head.
    So maybe Lexie’s right. Maybe we shouldn’t call Teensy Baby Maggie “Teensy Baby Maggie” anymore.
    We should call her Big Fat Meanie Baby instead.

CHAPTER FOUR
    W hen I wake up the next morning, there’s something under my bed.
    It’s past seven o’clock, and Mom has told me three times to GET UP. But I can’t, because the thing under my bed is bumping and lashing its tail. It’s Winnie’s cat, Sweetie-Pie. Every time I sneakily sneak my foot out, Sweetie-Pie swipes at it.
    I hear Mom on the staircase. She’s heading toward my room. Uh-oh .
    â€œTy, this is the third time I’ve had to call you to breakfast,” she says, sagging against the door frame.
    The fourth, actually. “I’m getting up. I promise.”
    â€œBaby, you’re not. You’re lying there like a lump.”
    â€œOkay, but . . .”
    â€œNo ‘buts,’” she says, and she uses her sharp voice. “Get your hindquarters moving, bucko.”
    Then she just leaves! Without even asking what’s making me stay stuck in bed!
    I stick my tongue out at her even though she’s gone. Teensy Baby Maggie gets to sleep in her crib, la la la, until Mom goes and gets her. I have to get up by myself, only I can’t because of Sweetie-Pie.
    I stick my tongue out at Teensy Baby Maggie, even though she’s in her own room. In my head, I say, Big Fat Meanie Baby .
    It cheers me up, so I say it outside my head. But quietly. “Poop on you, you Big Fat Meanie Baby!”
    Anyway, cribs are stupid. They’re like cages, and if Price came over and climbed into Maggie’s crib? He’d get his head stuck between the bars for sure.
    I imagine Price in Maggie’s crib. I imagine his head sticking out between the wooden bars, and I giggle my man-giggle. My man-giggle is awesome. I use my stomach muscles to push it out— heh heh heh— and Winnie says it makes me sound like an evil criminal.
    Then I remember that I still don’t know how to get out of bed because of Sweetie-Pie, and being scared of a cat makes me feel like a scaredy-cat. It dries up all my man-giggles.
    I’m not usually scared of Sweetie-Pie. When she sits in my lap, I pat her and say, “Good Sweetie-Pie.” Then Winnie pats me and says, “Good Ty. Good Ty for petting my good cat.”
    Hey! That gives me an idea! Sweetie-Pie is Winnie’s