Free YA The Boy on Cinnamon Street by Phoebe Stone

wise, smiling, 1700s way.
    “Thumb,” Henderson says, looking down at me.
    “What?” I say. “The pizza is here! Come on.”
    “Oh, Thumb,” he says again. “I’ve never seen … I can’t believe …” He follows me with his eyes. He does not take his eyes off me.
    “Henderson,” I say, “what? The pizza’s here.”
    I skip to the hall and open the door. Then smack in my face, there Benny is. He’s in the hall, taking the pizza out of its warm little padded pizza case. After all this time, I look up at him.
    And then Henderson comes up beside me and takes the pizza and goes, “Thanks, Benny. Keep the change. That’ll be all.” And he takes my hand and pulls me away from the door and shuts it. He sets the pizza on the coffee table.
    Then I go, “Henderson?”
    And he goes, “What? “
    And I go, “What?”
    And he goes, “What?”
    And I go, “Henderson?”
    And he goes, “What? I was hungry. That’s all.”
    And then my cell rings and it’s Reni again. I go into my room and I slam the door. I flop down on my bed and stare at the ceiling. Reni says, “Well, did Benny like the dress?”
    “Um, I don’t know,” I say. “I’m not sure.”
    “You can’t be serious,” says Reni. My head is still spinning. I feel like I just swallowed a butterfly upside down. Then Reni starts blabbing on about some movie we want to go see next week. I listen for a while and I start to melt into the words. Then I join in. We blab for a while. Reni and I are good at that. We blab on for a long time. It gets dark outside. Very dark.
    When my grandma and grandpa come home, I go back in the living room and see that the double cheese, double anchovies, double pine nuts, extra large pizza is sitting there on the coffee table untouched. And where is Henderson? Disappeared. Gone. Vanished.

Chapter
Thirteen
     
    My grandma just took me for my yearly checkup with Dr. Birpkin. He told me I’ve hit a plateau in my growing. He charged us money, but he didn’t do anything about my being small. “Be patient,” he said, slinging his stethoscope over his shoulder. I was thinking, “How about I’ll be a patient and you be a doctor and do something about my height.” I mean, what are doctors for?
    Now my grandma and I are driving home in silence. At a red light, my grandma says, “Remember when you used to write poems? Remember when you used to say things that were so poetic I used to jot them down in a notebook? Now you’re all angry and bristly, honey.” She reaches out and squeezes my hand.
    “You mean bristles like on a hairbrush?” I say.
    “Well, yes, kind of,” she says.
    I don’t answer. I’m never speaking to anyone again. Seriously.
    When we’re walking in the door of the apartment, Grandma throws her purse on the couch and says to Grandpa, “You know what I discovered in the basement today while I was down there sweeping?”
    “What?” says Grandpa.
    “Asbestos,” says my grandma.
    Grandpa raises his eyebrows and looks over at me like he and I are a unit, like a washer and dryer set, and Grandma is a stove way on the other side of the room. “Where, baby doll?” he says, still smiling at me.
    Grandma gives Grandpa a you-didn’t-take-out-the-garbage-so-now-I’m-going-to-have-you-arrested look. She puts her hands on her hips and says, “I was down in the basement this morning and suddenly I noticed there is asbestos around all the pipes down there.”
    “How do you know for sure, Cecile? It’s wrapping that has been there for a long time. You can’t tell by looking at it. Anyway, it’s better if you don’t disturb it,” he says. When Grandpa stops calling my grandma baby doll and starts in with Cecile, you know it’s serious.
    “Oh, I can tell,” she goes. “We’ve got to do something about it now.”
    “I see,” says Grandpa. “You are planning to rile up everybody in the building. Everybody will be up in arms and we don’t even know if it is asbestos.” Baby doll and honey bear