Free Mitch and Amy by Beverly Cleary Page B

straightening her room in a leisurely way.
    Amy hung up her dress and petticoat and stacked her music neatly on the bed, but somehow the faster Mitchell bustled about in the next room, the slower Amy worked. She was about to straighten her hair things when the sight of the scattered crayons on her desk tempted her to pull a sheet of paper out of a drawer and consider it a moment before she began to draw.
    A lovely feeling of peace came over Amy. She drew a square box in the middle of the paper and added dials and knobs and adozen rubbery-looking arms reaching out from the box. Each arm ended in a claw, and each claw held a picture of something she should have been picking up. One claw held a doll’s dress, another a sneaker, a third a plastic hair band. Around the machine she sketched her untidy room. Then she labeled her drawing The Handy-dandy Room Picker-upper, tacked it to her bulletin board, and felt as if she had straightened her room. And someday she really would. She would discard practically everything—all the old birthday-party favors and broken crayons and outgrown toys—and have a plain bare room like a pioneer girl, a room with a bed, a chair, and one treasured old doll. Keeping a modern room neat was too much work.
    Next Amy picked up her Girl Scout Handbook to see if she could apply her picture of the Handy-dandy Room Picker-upper toward a badge. She studied the list for the housekeeper badge, but as she hadexpected her picture was of no use. Her eye continued to travel over the requirements. She did not feel like helping her mother clean out the refrigerator, and she had already demonstrated how to use a broom, dust mop, and vacuum cleaner. She paused at, “Clean the kitchen or bathroom floor, sink, and fixtures.”
    Amy was suddenly full of energy. Handbook in hand, she went into the living room and asked, “Is it all right if I clean the kitchen or bathroom floor for my housekeeper badge?”
    Mrs. Huff looked at Amy in astonishment. “Do my ears deceive me?” she asked. “Did you say what I thought you said?”
    â€œYes,” said Amy smiling.
    â€œAre you feeling all right?” asked Mrs. Huff.
    â€œI feel fine,” said Amy.
    â€œBy all means, go right ahead,” said her mother. “But you had better do the kitchenfloor. I scrubbed the bathroom yesterday.”
    Amy, who had pictured herself sweeping a bathroom, had not thought in terms of actually getting down on her hands and knees and scrubbing. She thought quickly.
    â€œIs it all right if I ask Bonnie and Marla over to help, too?” she asked. “They’re in the Agonizing Alligator Patrol, too, and are working on the housekeeper badge.”
    â€œAgonizing Alligators—what a stupid name for a patrol,” remarked Mitchell on his way through the living room with an overflowing wastebasket.
    Mrs. Huff ignored him and spoke to Amy. “Certainly you may ask Bonnie and Marla, but you had better tell the girls to bring their own scrubbing brushes.”
    â€œWhat about Mitch?” Amy asked her mother, when two invitations had been extended and accepted by telephone.
    â€œWhat about him?”
    â€œDoes he have to hang around?” Amy wanted to know.
    Mrs. Huff glanced at the rain slanting against the windows. “We can hardly shove him outdoors in this weather.”
    â€œBut, Mom, he’ll get in the way,” said Amy. “You know how he is.”
    â€œNow, Amy,” said her mother, “Mitchell lives here, too, and there is not much for a boy to do on a rainy day.”
    â€œWell, can’t he stay in his room and work on some models or something?” asked Amy. “I don’t want him hanging around.”
    â€œWho wants to hang around a bunch of Agonizing Alligators?” asked Mitchell from his room and made a gagging sound.
    The two girls with their Girl Scout handbooks and scrubbing brushes came splashing through the rain.