Free Maniac Monkeys on Magnolia Street & When Mules Flew on Magnolia Street by Angela Johnson

the honeysuckle.
    “She's something, huh?”
    “Who?” I said. I didn't want Mom to think I was spying.
    “The girl with the wheelbarrow that you were watching.”
    Mom ate one of the apples on my plate and started the porch swing swaying.
    I said, “So what do you think she does with the stuff in the wheelbarrow?”
    Mom laughed. “What do
you
think?”
    Suddenly Sid was out on the porch putting in his two cents.
    “I think she eats all those flowers. She probably thought you were a plant with your head sticking out of those vines. She probably had never seen such a goofy-looking vine before and was going to come over and pull you up.”
    Just as I was about to pinch Sid, Mom coughed. Real loud and kind of fake, which usually means she's about to give that enough-is-enough look to me and Sid.
    I couldn't wait to meet the hat girl, but I suddenly remembered that I owed Sid a littlesurprise. So I just smiled at him and went into the house.
    I'd have the surprise for him later.
    Early the next morning I found a pot of flowers on our front porch with a note beside it that said
    THERE ARE SOME FLOWERS THAT
BLOOM ONLY IN THE MOONSHINE.
    They were from the hat girl. I decided to plant them by the honeysuckle vines. It was the first thing I had ever planted. I usually run when Mom starts putting in the garden. I guess the planting part is never as good as the eating part to me. I was really proud of how that moon flower looked. And just when I was feeling so proud I was about to float up into the sky, the hat girl appeared.
    She was still wearing her hat but didn't have the wheelbarrow. She stood on the front walk watching me.
    “Thanks for the moon flower.”
    “You're welcome. Ashley.”
    “No, my name is Charlie,” I said.
    The hat girl almost fell over laughing, holding her stomach. Then I started laughing. Soon we were both on the ground laughing. Sid went by on his bike and just shook his head.
    “My name is Ashley, but you can call me Ashe.”
    “Like I said, I'm Charlie.”
    Ashe and I sat there and talked for a long time. She told me everything about herself, and I told her everything about myself.
    Ashe loves chocolate and can eat it anytime, day or night. She's spending the summer with her grandmother (who gardens, too) around the corner on Pine Street. She lives in Chicagobut really loves it here on Magnolia Street.
    She loves music. I love music.
    Ashe loves animals, and so do I.
    “But most of all, Charlie, I love to garden and save plants.”
    Me and Ashe spent the rest of the day walking around the neighborhood.
    She'd point out different kinds of flowers and tell me what they were called in Latin. I'd point out everybody in the neighborhood and tell her who liked kids and who made the best cookies and muffins.
    Then I took her on a swing through the trees.
    You can tell a lot about someone who can swing from limb to limb without falling or screaming that their arms are falling off.
    Ashley is okay.
    She likes climbing trees and swinging from them almost more than me.
    Ashley asked, when we finally sat down in my front yard, “Who's the lady with all the statues everywhere? She seems real funny. Did you see the upside-down penguin in her front yard? I love her flowers. She puts them in silly planters. There're even sunflowers in a bathtub. I think I'll like her.”
    “That's Miss Marcia. She's an artist and can bake the best muffins in the world. She's great. I'll take you to meet her.”
    And I did.…
    Ashley—I mean Ashe—wandered all over Miss Marcia's studio and rubbed the smooth marble and stone.
    “It's great here. I think I could live in your studio forever—if you had more flowers, and vines growing up the statues.”
    Miss Marcia looked at Ashe for a long time, then said, “Well, why don't you help me out with that? I have a huge backyard full of art.”
    Ashley looked at the sculpture, then me, and smiled the biggest smile I'd ever seen.
    The next few days all we did was collect dirt in