With one quick snatch she had me from under the bed and out on the floor laying down next to Todd.
‘How dare you! This is how you choose to repay me? Not only have you struck him, you have provoked his asthma!’
Todd said, ‘I just tried to waken him to make sure he’d gone to the lavatory, Mother. I was just trying to help.’ He aimed his finger dead at me and said, ‘And look at him, Mother, this one’s got “bed wetter” written all over him.’
I’m not bragging when I say that I’m one of the best liars in the world but I got to tell you, Todd was pretty doggone good. It seems like he knew some of the same things I know, the things I think of all the time and try to remember so I don’t make the same mistake more than seven or eight times. Shucks, I’ve got so many of them rememorized that I had to give them numbers, and it seemed like Todd knew Number 3 of Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself.
RULES AND THINGS NUMBER 3
If You Got to Tell a Lie, Make Sure It’s Simple and Easy to Remember.
Todd had done that. But this wasn’t really a good example because Mrs Amos had her ears set to believe anything Todd said. In her eyes Todd’s mouth was a prayer book.
But I can’t blame Todd for lying like that, having someone who likes you so much that they think everything you say is the truth has got to be a liar’s paradise that might feel so good it could make you want to quit lying. But maybe not, ’cause Todd hadn’t quit lying since the second I came to his house.
What had really happened was that I woke up from a good sleep because it felt like a steam locomotive had jumped the tracks and chug-chugged its way straight into my nose.
When I’d jerked up in bed and opened my eyes Todd was standing next to me with a yellow pencil in his hand. He was looking at it like it was a thermometer and said, ‘Wow! You got all the way up to R!’
He turned the pencil toward me, crunched up against the headboard. I saw TICONDEROGA printed on the yellow wood.
The whole room smelled like the rubber from the eraser and I was winking and blinking my left eye because it felt like something had poked the back of my eyeball.
Todd laughed. ‘I’ve never gotten it in as deep as the N on any of you other little street urchins. I just might enjoy your stay here. Who knows what other things you could be number one in, Buddy?’
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