Bud, Not Buddy - Lesson 12 - Sara Hofer | Library

Instructions

from Bud, Not Buddy
by Christopher Paul Curtis

I didn’t notice before how funny Mr. Jimmy was. The stories he was telling about traveling around the country with Herman E. Calloway had us all laughing so much that even the nosy people at all the tables near ours quit eating and were busting their guts (1) and throwing their two cents (2) into the stories.…

I’m not sure exactly when it happened, if it was when I was scraping up the last little drops of melted whipped cream or if it was when Miss Thomas’s fingers got to flinging all that magic fairy dust (3), but sometime whilst I was sitting in the Sweet Pea another seed got to sprouting, sometime in that smells-like-heaven place another mighty maple started digging down its roots and grabbing hold.

One second I was laughing my head off and the next second I was feeling very surprised ‘cause something hit me just as hard as Snaggletooth MacNevin had smacked Herman E. Calloway. All of a sudden I knew that of all the places in the world that I’d ever been in this was the one. That of all the people I’d ever met these were the ones. This was where I was supposed to be.

And Herman E. Calloway could kiss my wrist4 if he thought he was gonna scare me out of this. It was gonna take more than a grouchy old bald-headed guy with a tremendous belly to run me out of here.

I was smiling and laughing and busting my gut so much that I got carried away and some rusty old valve squeaked open in me then … woop, zoop, sloop … tears started jumping out of my eyes so hard that I had to cover my face with the big red and white napkin that was on the table.

1 busting their guts: Laughing hard
2 two cents: Opinions
3 magic fairy dust: Light reflecting off Miss Thomas’s rings
4 kiss my wrist: Forget it

Curtis, Christopher Paul. Bud, Not Buddy. Laurel-Leaf Books, 2004, pp. 171–173.

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Part A: Which best describes Bud’s feelings at the restaurant with the band?

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PART B: Which evidence from the passage best supports the answer to PART A?

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Part AA: Read the final paragraph in this passage.

“I was smiling and laughing and busting my gut so much that I got carried away and some rusty old valve squeaked open in me then … woop, zoop, sloop … tears started jumping out of my eyes so hard that I had to cover my face with the big red and white napkin that was on the table.”

PART AA: What does the phrase some rusty old valve squeaked open in me suggest about Bud?

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PART BB: How do the words rusty and old add to the meaning of the metaphor?

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PART AAA: Which best describes the central idea of this passage?

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Bud, Not Buddy - Lesson 12

Part A: Which best describes Bud’s feelings at the restaurant with the band?

PART B: Which evidence from the passage best supports the answer to PART A?

PART BB: How do the words rusty and old add to the meaning of the metaphor?

PART AAA: Which best describes the central idea of this passage?

PART BBB: Which piece of evidence best support this idea?