MIKEY...busted

Thought I would share a few excerpts from my book. They are unedited so there will be lots of mistakes. Don't worry, those will all be fixed. But I just thought I would paste a section in here every week or so and let anyone read it for feed back. I wish I could find the first chapter, it is missing in action somewhere. I hope I don't have to write it over. This is from chapter 3. If it is boring, let me know. If it interests you and causes you to want to read more, let me know that too. It will help me to know if I am on the right track. Just to set this up... Mikey is about 12. He and his friend Paul just found a huge black widow spider at the train yards while playing. He comes home and is summoned by his mom who busts him for throwing rocks at an old ladies sunflower plant (Sound like anything your dad would do?) Read on...


“I’m home Mom!” Mikey yelled as he entered the house. The screen door slammed behind him.
“Mikey, I’m in the family room. Can you come in here for a minute?”
“Just a second Mom.” Mikey ran down the hall to his room to put the jar with the spider away. He was sure his Mom wouldn’t approve. Finding a place on the shelf next to the globe and a model airplane, Mikey pushed the jar toward the back and moved a picture of him and his dad at a baseball game in front of the jar to hide it.
“Mikey!” His mother called.
“Coming Mom.” Mikey didn’t like the way his mom called him. It sounded like trouble.
Mikey’s mom was a tall , pretty lady. The perfect Mom. All this friends liked her and his sisters friends where always over visiting with her, even when his sisters weren’t home. She sat in the chair by the window reading a magazine about planting flowers. Mikey could tell by the wrinkles in her forehead that something was up.
“Hi Mom.” A good hug and a kiss seemed to be in order , maybe minimize the damage.
He leaned over the magazine giving his mom a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“Mikey, I just got a call from Mrs. Hudson.”
Oh crap Mikey thought as his stomach knotted.
“She said you and Paul were throwing rocks at her sunflower plants. Is that true?”
Mikey hung his head. It was never good to lie to his mother, especially with a call from an eyewitness. He was simply busted. “Yeh, but..”
“I don’t want to hear any 'yeh buts'. That’s not acceptable. Mrs. Hudson is such a nice lady why would you terrorize her like that?”
We weren’t terrorizing her mom. We only hit one!”
“How many times have we talked about throwing rocks Mikey? I won’t stand for it. I want you and Paul to go over to her tomorrow and apologize to her.”
“Mom….” Mikey protested
“I don’t want to hear it! I’m going to call her right now to tell her you and Paul will stop by on the way home from school tomorrow to apologize and see if there’s anything you can do for her. She’s such a sweet old lady and probably needs help with something. You both owe it to her”
“Mom…can’t we just say we’re sorry? I’ve got plans after school tomorrow.”
“I know,” Mikes mom said, “you have plans at Mrs. Hudson’s house. No more complaints.” Her eyes opened wide to punctuate the statement. “And I don’t want any more rock throwing reports, understood?”
Mikey hung his head. “OK”
His mother folded the paper and put it back into the magazine rack next to the easy chair. She stood up, went to the kitchen, grabbed the phone book out of the a slot above a small desk area next to the refrigerator and began to thumb through the pages to find Mrs. Hudson’s phone number. After a short minute she picked up the phone and began to dial. Mikey started to head for his room.
“Michael, you stay right here.” His mother exclaimed as she sensed his move to escape.
Mikey lowered his head and walked slowly toward his mom.
“Hello, Mrs. Hudson. This is Jane ??? Mikey’s mother. I just had a little talk with Mikey and he and his friend Paul have decided that a good gesture would be to offer you their services this Saturday with some of your chores. They both are very sorry and Mikey wanted to tell you on the phone and make arrangements for Saturday... Yes... He’s standing right here, just a second.” She cupped the phone and raised her eyes in expectation to Mikey who was grimacing in protest. She handed him the phone.
Mikey slowly took the phone out of his mom’s hand and cupped the receiver, “What do I say,” he asked.
His Mother whispered. “You tell her you’re very sorry and that you and Paul would like to go over to her house on Saturday and help her with some chores.”
“But I got soccer on Saturday,” Mikey whined
“I don’t care, you’ll just have to work around it.” His mom folded her arms signaling the end of the protest.
“OK.” Mikey lifted the phone to his mouth. “Hi Mrs. Hudson…”

Mikey’s apology was short and sincere. He agreed that he and Paul would go over to her house right after soccer practice on Saturday morning and help with some yard work. It was a difficult thing for him to do but after hanging up he already felt better.
His mom patted him on the shoulder, and spared him repeating the details of his short conversation with Mrs. Hudson. She hugged him firmly and said. “Now don’t forget to show up on time. She will be expecting you.”
“OK Mom,” Mikey mumbled.
Mikey turned to go outside then remembered the spider in the Jar in his room, and decided to take a closer look.

In the top drawer of his dresser was a magnifying glass his grandmother had given it to him a couple of years ago. He hadn’t found much use for it since he first got it and spent an hour last summer burning up ants in the field down the street. But when you needed to look at something real close, like Mikey wanted to look at this particular spider, a magnifying glass was the perfect thing. He carefully closed and locked the door to his bedroom. No one was gonna make him let this huge spider go.
It was so big! The large black body was then size of an olive at Thanksgiving dinner. The eight black legs were motionless. Mikey couldn’t see any spider eyes but he knew this one had to be staring at him. Spiders were just that way.
“Man, the kids at school aren’t going to believe this,” he whispered to himself. He inspected the spider from every angle. Then put the jar back on the bookshelf behind the picture again to block it from view.