"The Underwear Tree"
or 101 Misadventures
by
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There is no such thing as relaxation at our house. I live on the edge, the edge of my seat, the edge of reality, the edge of a nervous breakdown. All of this is due to my five year old sister, Julie Anne. Take yesterday, for instance. I was trying to fix a snack after school, peanut butter on banana, when the doorbell rang. My mother answered it. It was our next door neighbor, Mrs. Fanning. Now Mrs. Fanning is no fashion model. She wears knee highs with all her dresses and thinks nobody notices. She mixes plaids and prints. Her hair is sprayed permanently into the shape of a football helmet. "I’m not sure what happened," she said in a shrill voice, "but the mailman has given me some of your mail, and some of Mrs. Williams’ mail." She looked quite befuddled. "Maybe our postman needs bifocals." Mother laughed as she took several letters from Mrs. Fanning. About that time my sister bounced into the kitchen with one of my old book bags strapped to her back. "Kel-wee, (that’s how she says my name) Kel-wee, we got any lemonade?" she asked. "It’s hot outside." Mom poured her lemonade into an old jelly jar decorated with pictures of Winnie the Pooh. "What have you been doing?" my mom asked casually. "Playing mailman," Julie Anne said. "What do you mean?" my mother questioned with growing alarm. "I took all the letters out of the mailboxes and now I’m putting them back in." "Tampering with the mail is a federal offense," Mrs. Fanning said as my mother asked, "Which mailboxes? How many mailboxes?" My sister unzipped the book bag and dumped its contents on the carpet. There was a small mountain of business sized envelops, postcards, manila envelops, even a few magazines. I had a vision of my sister ‘s mug shot on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.
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About the Book
Underwear hanging in trees, disastrous camping trips, back yard circuses are just some of the antics perpetrated by Kelly’s younger sister, Julie Anne, better known as Jules. As a fifth grader, Kelly is sometimes overwhelmed by her mischievous sibling. But with fun and adventure, Kelly is growing into a preteen who has to deal with the class bully, a practical joker who plays humiliating jokes. She also experiences her very first crush on a boy, an amateur magician who captures her attention with his tricks. When she and her friends help put out a forest fire, Kelly is rewarded with a kitten named Sparky. But Jules is jealous. Will she succeed in driving Kelly bonkers? Or will Kelly learn to be patient with her over imaginative sister? The book includes cartoons throughout and is both heartwarming and humorous.
About the Author
Kim McDermott holds a B.A. degree in English from the College of Charleston and an M.Ed. in Counseling from the Citadel. She has twenty years of experience in education as a high school English teacher and guidance counselor. She has published numerous articles and short stories in regional and national magazines such as Home Life, Reader's Digest, Standard, The Evangel, Single, Charleston Magazine, Southern Woman to Woman, Blue Ridge Country, Focus on Teachers, and others. While working as a career counselor, she published the book All Work, All Play and has written two stage plays The Hanging of Stede Bonnet and Song of Susannah, a musical drama about the mother of John and Charles Wesley. In 1988, she won the Blue Ridge Writers Conference award for excellence in Christian writing.