Bluefish Read Online Free PDF Page B

grabbed a doughnut and turned right instead of left. He walked fast along the gravel shoulder, trying to warm up. The heavy dew had a whisper of frost, and the sun was high enough to light the treetops but not to put any warm thon the road.
    He slowed as he got close to the dog's driveway and gave a high- low whistle.
    The dog came roaring down the driveway, lip snarled and hair spiking up the back of his neck. Travis stood maybe fifteen feet away from the drive, turned slightly away from the dog. He broke off a chunk of doughnut and tossed it between them. The dog ignored
    it and stood with legs and tail stiff , row wow wow, but his lip wasn't curled quite as high as last time.
    "Hi, dog," said Travis. "Whats a matter, you don't like day- olds?"
    He crossed to the other side of the road, keeping up a low, steady stream of chatter.
    "You want to be more careful, jumping out at people like that. You could end up on your butt on the sidewalk."
    The dog stopped barking, but a growl vibration motored deep in his throat.
    Travis tossed another chunk to the shoulder on the dog's side of the road. The dog glanced down, then locked his gaze back on Travis.
    "I'm leaving, see? Didn't even come close to your drive."
    After a few more steps, he turned to walk backward and caught the dog nosing the doughnut up off the ground. Travis smiled. Not so tough after all.
    He was tempted to step into the cornfield, but everything was wet with dew and he'd be soaked before he got five feet in. He followed the same route he'd taken Saturday, circling into town. He came up to the place where Velveeta had knocked him flat. He'd seen her coming out of the building and panicked, hiding behind the hedge, but then she'd turned that way and he was afraid she'd see him hiding, so he'd stepped out and whomp. Smackdown.
    What a complete and total bluefish. No wonder they all made fun of him in Salisbury. If they started in on him here, it'd be even worse, because there was no place to go.
    Back home, he used to pick up dead branches and whack them on trees as hard as he could, breaking them down to kindling. Or he'd grab the ax and work on the woodpile, slamming into chunks of oak, splitting them clean. With that and Rosco on his side, he could put a cork in it and when the hissing and fssshing started up, just walk away.
    Unless someone touched him. Then it was all over.
    Not Velveeta, though. He grinned and shook his head.
    She had knocked him flat so fast, he hadn't had time to get mad. She bashed him harder than he'd knocked Joey Nizmanski last November in the boys'
    bathroom, when Joey hit his head on the sink and got himself a concussion and Travis a suspension.
    All Travis got from Velveeta was a bit of road rash on his hands. No name calling, no laughing, not even a halfway eye- rolled glance that said he wasn't worth looking at. No, instead there was the sound of her voice when she said she wasn't carrying meth, just laundry, and the nod that came after. Whatever she'd packed into the words and the nod, it was something Travis had never felt coming his way before. It almost made him look forward to school. He picked up his pace so he wouldn't be late for first period.
    on MONDAY
    I don't get it. I figured Travis and I would be partners for the social- studies project. I had this great idea about a really easy skit we could do, but he kept saying no to everything and then at lunch he went down from six words to two.
    I couldn't even get him to crack his famous tiny almost- smile.
    After our
    Saturday morning sidewalk shootout, I thought we might actually be friends of some kind.
    But what do I know about friends? Everyone loves Velveeta, hahaha. I'm everyone's entertainment monkey, and they all want me to sit with them at lunch or be in their group.
    But how often do they invite me to their birthday parties?
    Remember my ninth birthday? When you got all those goofy stuffed animals from Goodwill and put party hats on them? That was the best birthday