Free Muggie Maggie by Beverly Cleary

Chapter 1
    A fter her first day in the third grade, Maggie Schultz jumped off the school bus when it stopped at her corner. “Bye, Jo Ann,” she called to the girl who was her best friend, sometimes. “See you tomorrow.” Maggie was happy to escape from sixth-grade boys who called her a cootie and from fourth-grade boys who insisted the third grade was awful, cursive writing hard, and Mrs. Leeper, the teacher, mean.
    Her dog, Kisser, was waiting for her. When Maggie knelt to hug him, Kisser licked her face. He was a young, eager dog the Schultzes had chosen from the S.P.C.A.’s Pick-a-Pet page in the newspaper. “A friendly cockapoo looking for a child to love” was the description under his picture, a description that proved to be right.
    â€œCome on, Kisser.” Maggie ran home with her fair hair flying and her dog springing along beside her.
    When Maggie and Kisser burst through the kitchen door, her mother said, “Hi there, Angelface. How did things go today?” She held Kisser away from the refrigerator with her foot while she put away milk cartons and vegetables. Mrs. Schultz was good at standing on one foot because five mornings a week she taught exercise classes to over-weight women.
    â€œMrs. Leeper is nice, sort of,” began Maggie, “except she didn’t make me a monitor and she put Jo Ann at a different table.”
    â€œToo bad,” said Mrs. Schultz.
    Maggie continued. “Courtney sits on one side of me and Kelly on the other and that Kirby Jones, who sits across from me, kept pushing the table into my stomach.”
    â€œAnd what did you do?” Mrs. Schultz was taking eggs out of a carton and setting them in the white plastic egg tray in the refrigerator.
    â€œPushed it back.” Maggie thought a moment before she said, “Mrs. Leeper said we are going to have a happy third grade.”
    â€œThat’s nice.” Mrs. Schultz smiled as she closed the refrigerator, but Maggie was doubtful about a teacher who forecast happiness. How did she know? Still, Maggie wanted her teacher to be happy.
    â€œKisser needs exercise,” Mrs. Schultz said. “Why don’t you take him outside and give him a workout?” Maggie’s mother thought everyone, dogs included, needed exercise.
    Maggie enjoyed chasing Kisser around the backyard, ducking, dodging, and throwing a dirty tennis ball, wet with dog spit, for him until he collapsed, panting, and she was out of breath from running and laughing.
    Refreshed and much more cheerful, Maggie was flipping through television channels with the remote control, trying to find funny commercials, when her father came home from work. “Daddy! Daddy!” she cried, running to meet him. He picked her up, kissed her, and asked, “How’s my Goldilocks?” When he set her down, he kissed his wife.
    â€œTired?” Mrs. Schultz asked.
    â€œTraffic gets worse every day,” he answered.
    â€œWas it your turn to make the coffee?” demanded Maggie.

    â€œThat’s right,” grumped Mr. Schultz, half-pretending.
    Other than talking with people who came to see him, Maggie did not really understand what her father did in his office. She did know he made coffee every other day because Ms. Madden, his secretary, said she did not go to work in an office to make coffee. He should take his turn. Ms. Madden was such an excellent secretary—one who could spell, punctuate, and type—that Mr. Schultz put up with his share of coffee-making. Maggie found this so funny that she always asked about the coffee.
    â€œDid Ms. Madden send me a present?” Maggie asked. Her father’s secretary often sent Maggie a little present: a tiny bottle of shampoo from a hotel, a free sample of perfume, and once, an eraser shaped like a duck. Maggie felt grown-up when she wrote thank-you notes on their home computer.
    â€œNot today.” Mr. Schultz tousled Maggie’s hair and went to