Two-Thousand-Pound Goldfish by Betsy Byars Page B

were having cookies and milk. Tonight he had to tell his mother something so interesting, so fascinating she would not want to hang up even when the call was over.
    His main interest, of course, was his movies, but that would not do. He would need at least a half hour to do justice to one of those.
    And then, right in the best part—something like “There’s nothing that can stop the monster now. His growth cells have gone wild!”—right in the middle of something like that, she would say, “Well, I have to hang up now. Bye-bye.” Click.
    “What sort of things do you usually say?” he asked carefully, looking up at his sister.
    “Oh, I tell things about me, about the family. Sometimes she asks questions. Sometimes I do. There’s never enough time, though.”
    “Oh.”
    They rounded the corner and there was the library. In front, the phone booth was lit up. It was the only thing Warren saw. It dominated all the important buildings. Indeed, the buildings did not even seem real, a painted backdrop.
    Suddenly Warren cried, “Weezie there’s somebody inside.” He ran forward a few steps. “Look, somebody’s in the booth talking!” His voice broke with disappointment and frustration. He turned to his sister.
    “We’ve still got”—she looked at her watch calmly—“three minutes. If he’s not out by then, I’ll declare an emergency.”
    Warren had begun to wring his hands. They were so slick with sweat that it was as if he were washing them with soap.
    “Weezie!”
    “Look, don’t worry about it. It’s not the first time I’ve had to evict somebody. One time I stopped a lady in the middle of giving a recipe.”
    “But what if he won’t—what if you can’t—”
    “I’ll get him out.”
    Suddenly it seemed to him that Weezie was the strong one, the Wonder Woman, the person who could save the world. At any rate, he knew she would save this moment, and that was all that really mattered.
    He looked up at his sister. He was dazzled by the glowing picture of her yanking the man out of the booth as the library clock struck seven, tossing him across the street, stepping in just as the phone began to ring, saying coolly, “Hello.”
    Warren had always thought a person had to do big, overblown things to be great. And yet this—Weezie getting a man out of a phone booth so they could talk to their mother—this was the most heroic feat he could imagine.
    They walked together to the phone booth and stood outside the door. Inside, the man was saying, “Let me explain, Marsha, I can explain it if you’ll just give me a chance.”
    “What time is it now?” Warren asked, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.
    Weezie looked down at her watch and held up two fingers. Warren waited without speaking. With her eyes on her wristwatch Weezie waited, then she held up one finger.
    “Get him out,” Warren said.
    She nodded and knocked on the door of the booth. The door rattled loudly, and the man glanced over his shoulder in irritation.
    “We have to use the phone. I’m sorry. It’s an emergency,” Weezie said. She sounded like a policewoman, Warren thought proudly.
    “What? This is a public phone. I’m in the middle of a conversation.”
    “I’m sorry. Are you aware of the penalty for refusing to give up the phone in case of an emergency call?” She paused, added, “Two hundred dollars or thirty days in jail.”
    “What?”
    Weezie did not answer. The man glanced at the phone in his hand, up at Weezie’s stern face—she was taller than he. “All right, lady!” He said quickly, “I’ll call you right back,” just as Weezie took the phone from him and hung it up.
    “We won’t be long,” she said.
    “Well, how long? I’ve got other calls to make. I’ve got to—”
    “Three minutes.”
    The man moved outside and sat on the library steps, watching them. He glanced down at his own watch.
    Weezie let out her breath in a long sigh of relief and stepped into the phone booth. She waited