Read Maniac Monkeys on Magnolia Street & When Mules Flew on Magnolia Street for Free Online

work out.”
    “Me too. Billy loves picnics.”
    “Maybe they'll plan another get-together.”
    “Maybe they will, even though none of thepeople were related to Billy's family. It turned out that the people had come to the wrong street arid the wrong house. Their relatives live on Magnolia
Drive.
They'd never been there before.”
    Mom started laughing so loud I thought she would scare all the fireflies.
    “So, Charlie,
that
was the twist?”
    “Pretty twisty, huh?”
    “You had some day.”
    “Oh, yeah, it was pretty okay. I'm tired now.”
    “I'll bet you are, entertaining Billy's not relatives like that. Time to go up to bed now.”
    “Okay, but Mom. Can I have a tree swing?”
    Mom pulled me toward the door.
    “Time for bed, Charlie-poo.”
    “Mom!”

Us and the Wind
    W hen the wind blows on Magnolia Street, it can bring just about anything or anyone blowing by.
    It's been a fun summer, and even though I'll soon be going to a new school, Billy says I'll like it.
    Today we climbed up into the tree in front of my house. We swayed there, enjoying the windy day. All kinds of things flew by us.
    We both sat wide-eyed and said, “Wow.”
    This is what we saw:
    Clothes from people's lines.
    A baby stroller full of vegetables.
    Garbage can lids and people chasing them.
    There was even a big old bowl of popcorn that Miss Marcia had been spray-painting. The purple and red popcorn looked so pretty flying around the neighborhood. We watched it all from our perch in the tree.
    Me and Billy started to imagine that we were in the sails of a tall ship. All the things blowing by us on Magnolia Street became big waves of water.
    When anyone walked by our sailboat, we called out, “Ahoy!”
    Then they just looked all over the place trying to find out where the voices came from. Nobody ever looked up, though. Me and Billy sailed along. We passed islands and dolphins who swam along beside us as we went farther out into the ocean.
    Billy yelled, “Sea monster!” when Mrs. Bateman went running by in the funniest-lookinghat I've ever seen. She really did look like a monster in that hat. We were rescued from the monster when her hat blew off and she chased it down the street—I mean, ocean.
    Billy said, “I love sailing,” and I knew what he meant as we floated on past Magnolia Street.
    When me and Billy were just about to discover a new island, we were brought back to Magnolia Street, the wind, and the tree. We looked down and there he was.
    A boy in overalls and a straw hat heard us calling, “Ahoy!”
    Squinting into the wind, he looked up at us and yelled, “Who's up there? What are you two doing? Can I climb up, too? How long have you been up in the tree?”
    The boy kept asking questions and jumping like a frog every time we answered one. When he ran out of questions, he spun in circles, then flew like an airplane around the tree.
    He looked as if he belonged in the wind as he flew around our imaginary sailboat.
    I asked, “What's your name, kid?”
    The boy stopped flying and jumped straight up and grabbed on to one of the lower branches, then started swinging.
    “My name's Lump.”
    Lump kept swinging.
    Billy said, “Where do you live?”
    Lump let one hand go and pointed to somewhere down the street.
    I said, “Lump from down the street, huh?”
    Lump said, “I live around. One minute I was on my street, the next I'm here.”
    Billy said, “I think I saw you in school last spring.”
    Well, on most days Billy pretty much thinks the way I do about certain things. I mean, there have been a few times when we didn't see things alike. Most of the time, though…
    So when I said, “Lump from down the street,” I think that Lump's name suddenly struck Billy as real funny, because it was only a few seconds later that Billy fell out of the tree laughing.
    I worried that Billy might have hurt Lump's feelings, and that isn't like Billy.
    But when I looked down through the branches, Billy was sitting on the grass beside