by Gary Paulsen
OTHER YEARLING BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:
THE HAYMEADOW, Gary Paulsen
THE COOKCAMP, Gary Paulsen
THE VOYAGE OF THE FROG, Gary Paulsen
THE BOY WHO OWNED THE SCHOOL, Gary Paulsen
THE RIVER, Gary Paulsen
THE MONUMENT, Gary Paulsen
HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS, Thomas Rockwell
HOW TO FIGHT A GIRL, Thomas Rockwell
CHOCOLATE FEVER, Robert Kimmel Smith
BOBBY BASEBALL, Robert Kimmel Smith
YEARLING BOOKS/YOUNG YEARLINGS/YEARLING CLASSICS are designed especially to entertain and enlighten young people. Patricia Reilly Giff, consultant to this series, received her bachelor’s degree from Mary-mount College and a master’s degree in history from St. John’s University. She holds a Professional Diploma in Reading and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hofstra University. She was a teacher and reading consultant for many years, and is the author of numerous books for young readers.
For a complete listing of all Yearling titles,
write to Dell Readers Service,
P.O. Box 1045, South Holland, IL 60473.
Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
Copyright © 1994 by Gary Paulsen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
The trademark Yearling® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The trademark Dell® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
eISBN: 978-0-307-80383-2
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Other Yearling Books You Will Enjoy
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Duncan—Dunc—Culpepper was marking the floor in Amos’s hallway with pieces of white tape.
“That was your best run yet. You went three feet, four and three quarter inches farther than the last time,” Dunc said.
They had put together a ramp on the staircase with some plywood they found in the garage. Amos was riding his dad’s leather office chair, the new one with six wheels, down the ramp and out to the hall.
Dunc was conducting an experiment on forward momentum. And he also had this thing about breaking records. He timed each of the runs and marked the exact stopping point with a piece of tape.
Amos was at the top of the stairs. He pushed off with one foot and started rolling. He picked up speed. Everything around him was a complete blur.
Then the phone rang.
Amos’s ears shot out like radar.
If Amos was within a two-mile radius of a ringing phone, he would try to answer it. He knew it was Melissa Hansen trying to call him.
Amos worshiped Melissa. He would have given anything if she would notice him. She never did. He was invisible to her. Once at school she hung her windbreaker on his ear, thinking he was the coat rack.
Dunc knew about Amos’s problem with phones. He jumped out of the way just in time.
Amos came barreling down the ramp headed for the hall phone. His brain calculated the hall phone to be exactly seven point three centimeters from his fingertips. He made a try for the phone with his left hand.
He missed.
The chair came up on two wheels. It wobbled and came back down. He still might have been okay.
Except for the dog.
Scruff, his dog, chose that exact moment to run in from the living room. The chair hit the dog and tipped forward. It was like launching a missile.
Amos hit the front door headfirst.
When Dunc got to him, pieces of the door were everywhere. Amos’s head and shoulders had gone completely through. Scruff was growling and gnawing on one of Amos’s legs.
Dunc swung the door open so he could talk to him. “I got the phone for you. Your parents are going to be late. Someone stole their car stereo. They’re at the police station. Your mom wants you to start dinner.”
Amos was trying to shake the dog off of his leg and work his way out the door. He looked up at Dunc. “Unless you’re busy—or doing something else—get me out of here.”
Dunc grabbed him by his feet and pulled. Amos fell out on the floor. He was a mass of splinters.
Scruff took one last bite out of his leg and jumped outside through the hole in the door.
Amos’s shirt was shredded and one pant leg was mangled. Dunc could see the neighbors across the street through the hole in the door.
Amos tried to focus. He looked at the hole in the door. “They sure don’t make doors like they used to,” he said.
“I hope your dad sees it that way,” Dunc said.
“We’ve been needing a new door anyway. That one is at least two years old. Hey, did you see that slick move I made when I got near the phone? I almost did it this time. An Olympic downhill skier probably wouldn’t have had much better style. Did you see how I corrected my form at the last minute?”
Dunc nodded.
“Who did you say was on the phone?”
“Your parents. They want you to start dinner.”
“Oh. I already did.”
“I don’t smell anything.”
“That’s because it’s a cold dinner. You don’t have to cook sauerkraut and ketchup sandwiches.”
Dunc turned green.
“By the way,” Amos said, “can I eat over at your house tonight?”
Dunc was sitting at his computer deep in thought. Amos was bouncing a softball off the bedroom wall. “What are you thinking about?”
“I was wondering if the police will be able to catch the guys that stole your car stereo,” Dunc said.
“They told my parents it could take a while. There’s been a whole string of these burglaries in the last month. So far they don’t have any leads.”
“Hmmm.”
“Don’t start that.”
“What?”
“Whenever you make that sound, it always means trouble for me. Remember when I was stuck in that chimney? It all started with that dumb sound.”
Dunc shrugged. “I thought since it was your car, you might want to help find out who did it.”
“My dad says his insurance will cover it. I’m not worried. Besides, school starts tomorrow and I’ve got more important things to worry about.”
“Like what?”
“Like making sure Melissa has the desk next to mine in homeroom.”
Dunc turned off the computer. Amos Binder was his lifetime best friend. He knew if he let him get started talking about Melissa, he would talk all night.
“Let’s go to the mall and see how everybody is spending their last night of freedom,” Dunc said.
Amos jumped up. “Good idea. Maybe we’ll run into Melissa.”
The Pioneer Mall was only a fifteen-minute bike ride from Dunc’s house. They took the shortcut through the abandoned housing development.
They coasted into the parking lot of the mall. Red lights were flashing everywhere. Two police cars were parked behind a new yellow Mustang.
Dunc stopped his bike a few feet away. An officer was taking a statement from the woma
n who owned the car.
“I was only in the mall for a few minutes. My car was definitely locked. When I got back, my stereo was gone.” The woman stared at the hole in her dashboard.
The officers checked around for witnesses, but no one had seen anything.
Amos was in a hurry to get to the video games. He tapped Dunc’s shoulder. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”
Dunc held up his hand. “Wait a minute. I want to see what happens.”
Before the police officer left, he assured the woman that everything possible would be done to find her stereo.
Dunc walked his bike up closer. “Excuse me, ma’am. My friend here just had his stereo stolen too. Would it be okay if we looked around? The police might have missed something.”
The woman nodded her head. “You might as well. I don’t see how it could hurt.”
Amos held Dunc’s bike while he looked around by the car. He searched like a bloodhound, but nothing seemed out of place. He was about to leave when he looked through the front window. Something shiny caught his eye. He opened the door, reached in, and picked up a silver bead.
“Does this belong to you?” Dunc asked.
She took it out of his hand. “I don’t recognize it. It might belong to my daughter. I’m not sure.”
“Do you mind if I keep it?”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know what good it will do. But sure. Go ahead.”
Dunc put the bead in his pocket. “Come on, Amos. We better get going.”
There were kids all over the mall. It was an every-year, last-night-before-school ritual. Everybody came to the mall to discuss teachers, classes, clothes, and strategy.
Amos kept an eye out for Melissa while they played Galaxy Snot-Ranger at the video arcade.
“Don’t you think it’s kind of interesting that these car burglars only hit cars at the mall?” Dunc asked.
“Where would you go if you needed about a thousand empty cars?”
“It’s okay, I guess, but you’d think they’d move around. To make sure nobody caught on.”
Amos shrugged. “They seem to be doing just fine without your help. Give me another quarter. I’m up to two hundred thousand points. I’m about to max out and break the all-time snot record.”
A group of girls walked past the entrance of the arcade.
Amos quit punching buttons and sort of floated over to the door. Melissa was one of the girls.
“Amos, what about your game?”
“You finish it for me. Mr. Smooth is now on the job.”
Oh, great, Dunc thought.
Amos hurried past the girls. He positioned himself at the end of the mall by the water fountain, leaned casually up against the wall, and waited.
Melissa and her friends were walking toward the fountain. It looked like it might actually work.
Except that the wall Amos was leaning on was a door. The door to the women’s rest room. An elderly lady with a cane pulled the door open from the inside. Amos had all his weight on his elbow. He lost his balance and fell sideways into the rest room.
Dunc couldn’t see him anymore. But it didn’t matter. Amos could be located by all the screaming and yelling from the rest room.
The lady started beating him with her cane. “You pervert! This will teach you to mess with a defenseless woman.”
Amos tried crawling away from the woman, but she hit him harder and kicked him in the ribs for good measure. It started a chain reaction. Another woman joined in with her umbrella. One lady got in a couple of licks with her purse. Then she pulled out a can of Mace.
When Amos finally got away, he was beaten to a pulp. He walked like a mass of quivering Jell-O.
Melissa and her friends had disappeared.
Dunc helped him walk back out to the bicycle rack. “Are you okay?”
Amos looked up at him with his one good eye. The other one was swollen shut. “Never felt better.”
“I don’t think Mr. Smooth impressed Melissa.”
“Why don’t you rub a little salt on my cut lip while you’re at it?”
Dunc shrugged. “I was just telling you so you wouldn’t try this particular move next time.”
Amos tried to throw his leg up over his bike. “There won’t be a next time. She probably thinks I’m a complete geek and will never call me or even speak to me again.”
“She doesn’t speak to you now.” Dunc sighed. “Besides, there’s a chance she didn’t know it was you.”
Amos’s face brightened a little. “You think maybe?”
“I think you fell in the door before she could be sure who it was.”
Amos smiled. “I can live with that. If we hurry, we might be able to catch up with her.”
He pedaled off toward Melissa’s house.
Dunc sighed. “Maybe I should have told him the truth.”
The first day of school. It had an exciting yet deadly ring to it.
Dunc was up two hours early arranging the contents of his notebook and backpack in alphabetical order. Even his pens and pencils were in perfect alignment. All pens were placed lettering-side-up, and every pencil was exactly the same length.
Amos was tending to business also.
He was in his dad’s bathroom splashing the “green stuff” on his face. He slapped it on until his cheeks were sore. Then he poured it on his hair and rubbed it in.
When they met in front of Amos’s house, Dunc wished he had brought a gas mask. Amos had a smell that traveled thirty feet in front of him.
Dunc held his nose. “That stuff should be illegal. You should be arrested for polluting the environment.”
Amos sniffed in the air. “I don’t smell anything. Besides, the label says a little of this stuff will drive a girl wild.”
“I can certainly understand that. The fumes are toxic.”
Dunc made him ride on the opposite side of the road all the way to school.
The schoolyard was alive with music and conversation. Dunc and Amos locked their bikes in the rack just as the first bell rang.
Their first class was homeroom with Miss Monroe.
Miss Monroe was new this year. She was blond, pretty, and very inexperienced. She said they could sit anywhere they wanted.
Freddie—the Zit—Pittman took her up on it. He sat in her chair.
The class was pretty much in chaos. Paper planes were flying everywhere, and a couple of the kids in the back were using a work table for break dancing.
Dunc was reading a copy of Computer Weekly. Amos had managed to get the chair behind Melissa’s. He was hanging on every word she said to her second-best friend Steffie Thompson—until Melissa took a deep breath, held her nose, and moved to another desk.
Everything came to a complete standstill when the door opened and the principal walked in. Not because of the principal but because of the student with her.
He was no run-of-the-mill, ordinary kid. He had outrageous red spiky hair and an earring in one ear. He was older and outweighed everybody in class by fifty pounds. His clothes were black. All black. Including a leather jacket with zippers and metal stuff all over it.
The principal handed Miss Monroe some paperwork and left.
“Class, I want you to meet … Slasher Davis. Unusual name. Just have a seat anywhere.”
Slasher’s eyes narrowed as he looked around the room. Finally they fixed on a desk in the back.
It was Amos’s desk.
Slasher swaggered to the back of the room. He picked up the desk and dumped Amos out on the floor.
“Thanks, Teach. I’ll take this one.”
Amos pulled his face up off the floor and sat up. “Nice to meet you, Slasher. Hope you like the desk.”
The bell rang.
There was a mad dash for the door. Slasher deliberately stepped on Amos’s hand as he left.
Dunc helped him up. “What a creep. Do you need to go to the nurse or anything?”
“No, I’m okay. That guy is just lucky I’m in a good mood. Otherwis
e there might have been bloodshed.”
“Yeah, yours.”
Amos picked up his books. “You forget those kung fu classes I took. I’m a deadly weapon.”
“Amos, you only took two classes.”
“What are you saying?”
“Maybe you should just try to stay out of his way.”
“Okay, but it’s not because I’m afraid or anything. It’s only because you want me to.”
“Thank you, Amos.” Dunc smiled and grabbed his books.
The morning classes went a little better than homeroom. Except for PE, when Amos got his head a little too close to the bow in archery, and part of his eyebrows ended up stuck to the target.
At lunch they sat at their regular table. Tommy Farrel and Jesse Perez were involved in a burping contest. Tommy had just let one go that shook the building.
What happened next shouldn’t have. It was just one of those unlucky turn of events.
Amos got up to return his tray. His foot caught the edge of the table. He did a full somersault and came up on his feet. It was amazing. The only problem was that he lost the tray.
It flew to the next table and landed in a kid’s lap. But not just any kid.
Slasher Davis.
Mashed potatoes stuck out in little clumps on his spiked hair. He was not a happy camper.
Before Slasher was through, Amos was wearing the tray around his neck. An orange was stuck on his nose, and two milk cartons were attached to his ears.
Dunc helped him get the tray off before he choked to death. “I told you to stay away from that guy.”
Amos looked at him.
A cafeteria worker walked over and chewed Amos out for damaging school property. She told him he’d have to pay for the tray.
The bell rang.
School was over for the day. They were sitting on the bed in Amos’s room. Or Amos was sitting. Dunc was afraid to sit on the bed. Amos had a lifetime collection of trash, food, and clothes under that bed. Dunc preferred to stand. That way he could see if anything crawled out.
“As I see it, we have two big problems,” Dunc said. “The stereo thieves and Slasher Davis.”
“I no longer have either of those problems.” Amos put his hands behind his head and leaned back. “My dad just got a new stereo, and I am never going back to school.”
