All Good Children Read Online Free PDF

waste. I have cleared my road with my fists and feet. I can walk wherever I want to now.
    True, Tyler and his friends might take out my eyeballs with a spoon tomorrow, but right now he’s bleeding and I can’t get the smile off my face. It widens every time he glances at me, his nose swollen and his eyes miserable.
    â€œWhen did you learn to fight?” he asks.
    I snort and bare my teeth.
    He shakes his head and wipes his bloody lip. “I must be out of practice.”
    I hope he’ll practice up on me. I could squeeze a beating into my Monday schedule: pack lunch, walk Ally to school, beat the crap out of Tyler Wilkins, get suspended.
    My happiness plateaus when my mother trudges up the school driveway. “I just signed in the car when I got the call from your principal,” she says.
    I hang my head and hope it looks repentant.
    â€œIs someone coming for you?” she asks Tyler. He shrugs.
    The tallest guard steps up to Mom and says, “He has to leave with his own guardian.”
    She nods. She knows the guards will regret that rule after they pass the entire school day sitting on the front steps waiting for Tyler’s parents to show. “Okay, Max, let’s go. Goodbye, Tyler.”
    â€œBye.” It surprises me when he adds, “Bye, Max.” Like we’re friends, like we got into trouble for skipping class together.
    â€œI’ll see you,” I say. I don’t mean it to be menacing, but after I say it, I like the way it sounds.
    Mom doesn’t speak on the walk home.
    â€œI can get my assignments off Blackboard,” I say. She doesn’t glance at me. “I was defending Xavier,” I add. She just sighs.
    When we get to our building, I want to race up the flights of stairs, but I slow myself down for Mom’s sake. She yawns and says, “I haven’t slept since Saturday night.”
    â€œTechnically, it was Sunday morning.”
    She stares at me like I’m the biggest ass in the world. And maybe I am. But as I review the fight in my mind—I add an announcer in the background, cameras on the side—the crowd goes wild.

    I thought I’d spend my suspension exercising and watching Freakshow , but Mom puts an end to that dream when she wakes up in the afternoon. Instead of making me a sandwich, she makes me a list of chores: dishes, dusting, laundry, clean Ally’s room, supervise Ally’s homework . When I add wipe Ally’s ass to the list, she is not amused.
    â€œOkay. I’ll do chores,” I say. Then I continue watching Freakshow until she stares me down.
    I work my way to the bottom of the list by six o’clock. I help Ally with her homework while Mom makes supper. I am not a premium teacher. It frustrates me when Ally doesn’t understand her work. It makes me think she’s a recall, and I hate that thought because I love her so much.
    Her spelling words are strange but simple: duty, job, joy, love, power, help, hurt, good, bad, boy, girl . That’s a damaged mix of words, but they’re phonetic—except love , which is irregular in every way.
    â€œNo!” I say for the fourth time. “It’s h-u-r-t, not h-e-r-t!”
    â€œI’ll take over, Max. You set the table,” Mom says. She smiles at Ally. “Remember that U can get hurt. Not E .”
    Ally laughs. “An E can’t get hurt, can it?”
    I arrange knives and forks and feel like a creep.
    â€œThere’s something wrong with the kids at my school,” Ally says when she dissolves her screen. “I think they’re sick.”
    Terror fills Mom’s eyes. Four million kids died in the Venezuelan flu epidemic. “Are they coughing?”
    Ally shakes her head. “Not sick like that. Sick like their heads are cloudy.”
    â€œAre they slurring their words? Losing their balance?”
    â€œNo. They’re just not right. They’re all slowed down.”
    Mom looks at me as though I