The Squirting Donuts Read Free Page A

“On his birthday.”

    â€œHow much is 567 multiplied by 64?” was one of our math problems. “A lot,” is what Calvin wrote. The real answer is 36,288. I’m good at math.
    â€œRemember! Be back by five,” Karen shouts as we leave.
    â€œWhere’s Clover?” Calvin asks.
    â€œIt’s close. I’ll show you.”
    Calvin just moved here, so he doesn’t know all the streets. I’ve met his mother lots of times. Calvin says I may have even met his father.
    â€œSpies wear lots of disguises,” he told me. “The man who cuts your hair may really be my dad.”
    â€œNo,” I said. “I’ve been going to the same barber for lots of years.”
    â€œHe could be your bus driver.”
    â€œI don’t go to school by bus. You know that. We walk together.”
    â€œYou’re missing the point. I’m saying you might have met my father and not known it was him because he’s a master of disguise. There was a park near my old house and once I was walking through it and someone called my name. I looked around and at first I thought no one was there. I heard my name again and recognized Dad’s voice. He was standing right next to me. He was disguised as a tree.”
    â€œA tree?”
    â€œA grapefruit tree,” Calvin said, “with lots of grapefruit hanging on its branches.”
    I don’t believe everything Calvin says, but still, since he told me that, I check out the trees whenever I’m in a park.
    We’re on our way to Clover Street.
    â€œI’ve been thinking about Mom giving jelly shots at the bakery,” Calvin says. “I bet before each shot, she’ll tell the donut, ‘This won’t hurt a bit.’ That’s what she always told me before I got a shot. She’ll say, ‘Now be a good little donut,’ and, ‘This will make you strong and healthy.’”
    I say, “I don’t think she’ll talk to the donuts.”
    â€œOh, yes she will. She’ll start out talking about jelly shots. From there she’ll talk about gunshots and that she doesn’t like watching some television shows because of all the bang-bang noises, that she holds her hands over ears when she watches those shows and you have to be careful when you clean your ears.”
    That is how Calvin’s mother talks. She goes from one thing to the next. It’s fun listening to her.
    â€œInside each ear is an eardrum,” Calvin tells me. “Mom will tell the donuts that. Then she’ll talk about how I play the drums and may become a rock musician.”
    I didn’t know Calvin plays the drums.
    â€œYou know what Mom will talk about next?”
    I shake my head. I don’t know.
    â€œFrom rock music, she’ll move on to rocks and maybe even to rock climbing or that a diamond is a rock and that the baseball infield is called a diamond.”
    â€œYour mom is fun,” I tell Calvin.
    We’re on Clover Street. Now we look for a small blue house.
    There’s a big house on the corner with a few trees in the front yard. I check. None of the trees is Mr. Waffle.

    There’s a small house on the opposite corner, but it’s not blue. It’s red brick and the grass needs to be cut. I know it’s not Mrs. Cakel’s house because she wouldn’t allow her grass to grow that long. She probably has a sign on her front lawn with a whole list of rules her grass, bushes, and trees must follow.
    We walk slowly down the block and look at all the houses. One is blue-gray, but it’s not a really small house and it needs to be painted. We both don’t think it’s the one.
    â€œThere,” Calvin says.
    He points to a small house that’s across the street and near the other end of the block.
    â€œI think that’s it,” Calvin says.
    The house is painted blue. The frames around the windows are white. The front lawn is cut and trimmed. Against