Crusader

Crusader Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: Crusader Read Online Free PDF
Author: Edward Bloor
cut, like Hawg. But he also has long blond hairs hanging from the sides of his head down over his neck. Kristin named him the Head Louse because, she suspects, he doesn't wash that long hair very often.
    Like a lot of the guys in the arcade, he's always looking at Kristin. And when he wants a ticket, he always seeks her out.
    Thanks to Crusader, we had our first big day in months. Our shiny new knight attracted fifty customers all by himself, for a total of $250.
    Dad dropped me off at home at ten, saying, "I'm going to Suzie's, honey, but I'll be back early."
    I did some homework, and then I tuned in to
The Last Judgment.
Stephen Cross, as he often does, got right up to the camera lens and spoke directly to me. His head was so close, and the backlighting was so intense, that he looked like a talking skull. It made me feel very creepy, and very alone.
    I clicked off the TV and went into my room. I went to sleep with the light on, hoping it would keep me from dreaming. It didn't work.
    In this dream, I was sitting on a plastic chair against a wall in a hospital emergency room. I was watching a group of doctors and nurses in blue masks and blue scrubs. They were gathered around a bloody patient on a high stretcher, working furiously.
    A policewoman walked over to me and said, "What are you doing here? You're too young to be in here by yourself."
    I pointed to the patient on the stretcher. I answered, "My mom. She had a heart attack." The policewoman started to write that down in a notebook. But she stopped when a doctor turned away from his work, looked at us, and said, "No she didn't. You're lying again."
    Then I woke up.
SUNDAY, THE 20TH
    Dad still wasn't in when I walked out to get the Sunday paper. I read it over breakfast, a Pop-Tart, before taking a quick shower and getting dressed. Then I put a folder on top of the Blockbuster Video bag. It contained a permission form for a field trip I'm very excited about. My journalism class is going to visit a TV newsroom. I hope to see the kind of job that I'll be doing one day.
    I still had some time to spare, so I switched on the local news. I switched it right off, though, when the weather came on. I can't understand why there are more than ten seconds of airtime devoted to weather. Today they said, "There's a thirty-percent chance of rain," which was ridiculous. They must announce that every day to fool the tourists.
    The fact is, there is a two-hundred-percent chance of rain every day during the rainy season, which is now. It will definitely rain twice—around eleven A.M. and around four P.M. Twice a day, every day, a storm like the end of the world hits. Huge black thunderheads, as tall as skyscrapers, rumble in from the west, from the Everglades. They pelt us with rain, like from huge fire hoses. It happens like that every day, twice a day.
    Because of that, I always time my walk to reach the mall before eleven o'clock. Today I was hoping Dad would stop by and give me a ride. It is a short walk to the mall—two blocks down to Everglades Boulevard and then about a quarter mile west to Route 27—but there aren't any sidewalks.
    By ten o'clock, though, I had to figure he wasn't coming. I locked up and set off.
    I was sweating by the time I got to Everglades Boulevard. Before I turned right, I noticed two familiar bodies coming up from 110th Street. Hawg seemed to be demonstrating some
kind of football move to Ironman. All I could hear was "Whomp! Whomp!" I stood on the corner and waited.
    Hawg called out to me, "Roberta, your daddy ain't bailin' on us today, is he? 'Cause I count on him bein' there on Sunday. Sunday's our day of rest. Right, Ironman?"
    Ironman grinned nervously. I could see that both these guys still had on yesterday's T-shirts. In the harsh morning sun, the black made Ironman's face look even more shriveled and pasty; the dark red made Hawg's look rounder, and made his pimples look more erupted.
    Hawg continued, "What if your daddy didn't show up?
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