Free Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff Page B

glad you found something you love?” she said.
    And I didn’t really get a chance to answer, because then she said, “I’m too hungry to wait for the spaghetti to boil. What do you say we eat cookies first?”
    That was one thing I didn’t have to think about too hard. Even if they weren’t nearly as good as donuts, I
knew
I loved cookies.

the thing
about the cups.

    H ere’s what I figured out about the coffee cups at the bodega downstairs that I stacked after school for free donuts while Calista was looking at art books with Hugo.
    I always ended up with four stacks of them. Always. Every single time. Twenty-five cups in each stack. One, two, three, four.
    I looked on the plastic bag once, and it said ONE HUNDRED PAPER CUPS .
    That’s how I knew that there were four stacks of twenty-five in one hundred. Every time.
    Here’s another thing I figured out. Once I’d counted out three stacks—one, two, three—then I didn’t have to count the last one. Because no matter what, it would be twenty-five in the stack, every single time.
    I figured that out by myself. No one told me.
    I told that to Mr. Clifton, because he asked me what I liked to do after school, so I told him, and he grinned at me and said, “Albie, I think you accidentally did math.”
    â€œReally?” I asked. I almost didn’t believe it.
    He nodded. “Did it hurt?” he said.
    I thought about that. Usually math hurt my brain, like a tree crashing down inside it over and over. But this time it didn’t hurt at all.
    â€œNope,” I said.
    Mr. Clifton gave me a high five.
    I hoped I could accidentally do math some more. It turned out that was the best way to do it.

change
of plans.

    T here was a storm on Halloween. A big one. So big that Erlan’s family couldn’t go to the Halloween Parade in the Village like they’d been planning, because all the camera equipment might get soaked.
    â€œToo bad,” Erlan said. But I could tell he wasn’t really upset about it.
    So that was the good part—that Erlan couldn’t go to the Halloween Parade and instead got to go trick-or-treating with me and Betsy.
    The bad part was that the storm was so terrible that Mom called from work and said she was going to be late getting home, because of the subway being flooded. She also said that she didn’t think we should go out trick-or-treating on Columbus Avenue like we always did.
    â€œBuh they hah the bess candy!” I shouted into the phone. I was already dressed up in my zombie costume—Calista had even put some gross scabby makeup on my face before she went home—and I knew I sounded like a baby, but I didn’t care. I popped my zombie fangs out of my mouth so I could talk better. “That’s where we go every year.”
    On the couch, Betsy looked down at her boots. She was dressed like a rock climber, with a rope around her waist and a headlamp and everything. She was pretending not to listen to me on the phone, but I knew she really heard. Erlan was listening too. He was dressed like a pirate, with an eye patch and a fake stuffed parrot elasticked to his arm.
    â€œYour father can take you trick-or-treating in the building,” Mom said. “Plenty of our neighbors will be handing out candy. Put your dad on, okay?”
    I didn’t want to, but I did.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    After that, I was sure Halloween was going to be awful, but it turned out it wasn’t. I was sure Dad wouldn’t wear a costume to help us trick-or-treat, but it turned out I was wrong about that too. Even if I didn’t get what it was he was supposed to be.
    â€œI’m a pencil pusher,” he told us, stretching out the cup of pencils in his hand in front of him again, like that would make it make more sense.
    Betsy giggled, but Erlan just said, “Huh?” which was what I was thinking. I didn’t really care what Dad’s costume