Free Thanks for Nothing (From the Files of Madison Finn, 5) by Laura Dower Page A

for a weekend. She had the social studies project on the brain. Today she and Egg had to finish their extra-credit project. Finally.
    Madison had been collecting a file and notebook of project ideas for almost a week. She’d found a list on the Web that showed the names of all 104 Mayflower passengers from 1620. She had read up about storms at sea and sickness on the plantation. There was a separate list of crewmembers and ship passengers, some of whom had survived and others who had perished.
    After eating breakfast, Mom drove Madison over to the Diaz house. It had been Madison’s idea to meet there. That way Egg wouldn’t be late and he’d definitely show up.
    When Madison rang the doorbell, it took a moment for anyone to answer. She later found Egg’s grandmother, Abuela; his aunt, Tía Ana; his older sister, Mariah; and his mom sitting in the kitchen, reading the paper and talking.
    Egg’s house was different than Madison’s in so many ways. It was smaller in size, but his place was packed with people.
    “Hola! Cómo estás?” Señora Diaz chirped when Madison arrived. She poured a tall glass of juice. “Walter está arriba”
    Señora Diaz taught Spanish at Far Hills Junior High and always tried to get Madison to practice her Spanish.
    “Por favor, siéntate!” Abuela said to Madison, asking her to sit. Abuela had known Madison ever since she had been a little girl. Madison always loved to hear her tell stories.
    “Buenos días, Abuela,” Madison said, taking a seat. She searched her mind for the right Spanish words.
    “Qué linda eres!” Abuela cried. Madison had no idea what she had said. Just then Egg came into the kitchen.
    “What did she say?” Madison giggled.
    “Abuela says you’re pretty,” Egg said.
    Madison smiled. “Oh.” She could tell that just saying those words made Egg a little bit embarrassed.
    “Cómo está escuela?” Abuela asked Madison. She wanted to hear about school.
    “Come on, Abuela, Madison and I have to go,” Egg said, wanting to leave the kitchen.
    Madison ate a small cookie from a basket on the table and racked her brain for a way to say that it was good. The only phrase she could remember was, “Dónde está la policía?” from last week’s Spanish class. But no one wanted to find the police, so she said nothing. She and Egg went to his room to practice the extra-credit presentation.
    In a terrarium near a large window, Gato puffed out his pink lizard throat as if to say hello. Egg’s pet gecko, Gato, was named for the word cat in Spanish. Madison always thought it was funny that Egg would name one animal after another. She liked the fact that he had an unusual pet, though.
    “So let me show you what I’ve got up on the computer,” Egg said, punching a few keys. “I’ve been working on this all weekend.”
    “Whoa.” Madison’s jaw dropped as the screen came into focus.
    Egg had taken the flat model of the Mayflower and turned it into a three-dimensional object onscreen. Madison was thrilled. He downloaded the images so they could put them into a special presentation for class.
    “Wow, you can see all the rooms inside,” she said, admiring it. “Do you think this should be our whole presentation? I thought we could hand out fact sheets, too. It’s always good to pass around something.”
    “Oh,” Egg said. “You think so?”
    Madison let him scan through a few more pages.
    “See?” Egg pointed to the page. “It has three main masts and a poop deck that’s very high up. The middle part of the ship is curved really low into the water.”
    They both gigged at the mention of a “poop deck.”
    Madison glanced at the computer screen and cross-referenced it with other reading materials on the Mayflower she brought along.
    “It says here that the ship was called a ‘wet ship’ because it was mostly in the water. I didn’t know that, did you?” Madison asked.
    “Huh?” Egg was too busy moving objects around on-screen to be paying any kind of