The Great Peach Experiment 1, Erin Downing [books to read romance .TXT] 📗

little globs of peanut butter all over the play area, to make it even more enticing. “Voila!” he whispered, admiring his masterpiece. Finally, he plucked each of his mice out of their container and gently lowered them into their very own, Herb-created, cardboard play zone. “Isn’t this fun?” he asked the mice, peering over the edge of his homemade mouse run. “Freddy and Lucy built something like this for me in the backyard once.”

The mice went wild in their new space. They scrambled through the tunnels, scurried up cardboard ramps, and gobbled up the peanut butter. Best of all, they couldn’t escape, because of Herb’s cleverly mounted sidewalls. It was like a giant playpen! Herb perched on his knees, peering over the wall of his mouse village. Then, feeling left out, he clambered over the wall and sat inside the pen with his mouse friends.

The smallest, lightest-brown mouse (the one Herb had named Fuzzy) loved hiding inside the little cardboard tunnels, and often poked his nose out to squeak at his pals as they passed. The medium-brown, chubby mouse (that Herb had named Lump) galloped in great circles around the wide-open space, climbing over Herb’s leg and sometimes trying to sneak up inside his pants! And Hound (the biggest, friendliest mouse, who had been named after the sweet dog in the Penderwicks series) seemed to enjoy it when Herb picked him up and placed him in new corners that he could explore. “I’m a mousy tour guide,” he said, giggling. Then he sang, “Hound goes here, Hound goes there, Hound goes every-everywhere.”

It was nice to see his pets happily exploring their new world. He loved that he could do something for his little pals, that he could help improve their conditions. Herb decided he was starting to become a pretty good caretaker. Forget Herb’s Cinnaballs—he could spend his nights making mouse exploration areas!

Suddenly, a loud ziiiiip! shook Herb out of his reverie. The tent flap flew open and Lucy poked her nose inside their newly redesigned tent space. “Herb!” his sister screeched, after she’d had time to get a good look at his creation.

“Yes?” Herb replied sweetly. He cringed; Lucy looked grouchy. Perhaps she’d been stuck in the kitchen too long. He lifted Hound and held the big mouse up in front of Lucy’s face. “Want to hold him? He likes it when you rub between his ears.”

His sister glared at him. “If I find one mouse poop in my bed tonight, you will pay,” she growled.

“I’ll clean everything up. I promise.” Herb said.

Lucy knew he would. Herb never broke promises. She nodded, satisfied. With a final huff, she dug her toothbrush and face wash out of her bag and zipped the tent flap closed again.

“Do we have time to read a chapter of our book before bed?” Herb called after her. Lucy didn’t respond, but he was pretty sure her loud grunt and angry footsteps meant N-O no.

17

  CHICAGO CHARACTERS

Freddy had always known he didn’t have the same type of smarts as the other members of his family. Lucy, Herb, and Dad had all mastered math facts, none of them ever got distracted during tests or projects, and everyone except Freddy had done brainy stuff that won prizes. Freddy never won prizes and, no matter how much he practiced, he was certain he would never remember how to multiply fractions.

Perhaps this was because Freddy’s head was filled to bursting with random facts, strange world records, art project ideas, and a few rather unimpressive card tricks. None of the things that occupied his brain ever earned him a perfect score on standardized tests, but he continually held out hope that someday his type of smarts and knowledge would prove useful for something.

Though he had read about a lot of amazing things over the past few years (fun facts about pee, an island that was home to a colony of swimming pigs, hundreds of scary-but-true survival stories), Freddy rarely experienced anything truly exciting in real life. His classmates were all very nice, but also fairly ordinary; his hometown was safe and pretty, nestled on the shore of majestic Lake Superior, but it was also pretty boring. If he was lucky, he crossed paths with one or two particularly interesting people on any given day—while he was at the library, selecting apples at the grocery store, or waiting to be picked up after his swimming lessons at the Y.

Which was why it was so exciting that, on the Peach family’s first day of business in downtown Chicago, Freddy met more interesting people than he would usually encounter in a whole year at home. During the course of the day, he gave all their customers nicknames and jotted them down in his sketchbook. He knew this would help him remember them all, so he could draw pictures of some of them later.

“Could I please try a sample of your apple pie?” A hulking, muscled guy wearing a SMILE tank top flashed Freddy a friendly smile just a few minutes after the Peach Pie Truck had opened. The man’s hair was shaved around the edges, but the top was long and pushed back with gel or sweat or something.

“Sorry,” Freddy told the guy. “We don’t offer samples.”

“I just…,” the man began. “Never mind. It’s not your problem.” Then the big guy began to cry. Loud, blubbering sobs that echoed off the buildings around them.

Freddy and Lucy exchanged a nervous look. Herb gaped at the man, while Dad pretended to be busy washing something in the sink. Meanwhile, the guy pulled napkin after napkin out of their dispenser, loudly snorting and wiping his nose.

Dad, clearly uncomfortable, stepped forward and looked beseechingly at Freddy. He mouthed, “What should we do?”

Unfazed, Freddy quickly said, “Which pie was it you were hoping to taste, sir?”

The guy blinked. He blubbered, “I—I’d love a quick sample of the apple.” He gobbled it down, and then belched and said, “That’s yummy. Now