Elvis and the Underdogs Read Online Free PDF Page B

give me her best fake smile. I didn’t think I had it in me to give her a fake smile back.
    As soon as I rounded the corner of the hallway, I ducked into the boys’ bathroom. I was shaking. I just didn’t want to walk into class and have everyone stare at me and start laughing. What made matters worse was that my mom and I had cleaned out her car, and we couldn’t find my titanium lug nut. Now I didn’t even have my lucky charm to calm me down. I was really upset about it, but I kept telling her that it was no big deal.
    Locking myself in the far stall, I looked at the late pass Principal Kriesky had given me. It was 8:51 a.m. And the time he’d written down was 8:50 a.m. Assembly would be over in nine minutes. I wondered if there was any way I could change the time on his note so I could delay the inevitable for just a little while longer. I looked through my book bag for a pen.
    I stared at the numbers. 8:50. Hmmm, not much wiggle room there. The only thing I could do was change the zero into the number eight, which wouldn’t buy that much extra time. Well, eight minutes was better than nothing, as far as I was concerned. I put my backpack on the floor, sat on the toilet, and hung out.
    The bell rang, and soon the bathroom was filled with the sounds of boys doing boy bathroom stuff (I’ll spare you the gory details). It was now nine o’clock, and I had to head to class. It was time to face the music. Why not start in the lion’s den? If I survived the boys’ bathroom, I could survive anywhere. I stood up, grabbed my backpack, and then turned and glanced back at the toilet. Dino was right. My helmet was way too big to get shoved into a toilet.
    I put my hand on the lever and unlocked the door. Then I froze. I couldn’t move. The twins always tell me I’m a big waffle—well, technically they call me a butt-waffle or waffle-head, but whatever. They always say I could never be the quarterback of a football team, because you have to make a decision out on the field in a half second or less, and do it with guys charging at you who want to remove your head from your shoulders. So what did it say for me that I couldn’t even make a decision when I was all by myself with no screaming fans, no time clock, and no guys charging at me? I don’t know how it’s possible to feel brave and scared at the exact same time, but that’s exactly what I felt like. Suddenly, while I was still frozen, the stall door was kicked open. It slammed right into me and knocked me down.
    I didn’t know for sure who’d kicked the door open, but I had a pretty good guess. I was at least 90 percent sure it was Billy Thompson. The door slammed into my hand when Billy kicked it. A shooting pain went up my arm. I fell backward and screamed.
    I guess all Billy saw was my giant green helmet, because he screamed in surprise too. I just yelled, “Ahhhh!”
    But Billy yelled, “Alien! Monster! Don’t take me!”
    This caused complete panic in the boys’ bathroom. Everyone in the entire school knows who Billy Thompson is, and when Billy Thompson sounds scared and yells, people listen. All I heard was screaming and stall doors slamming. More than a few boys called out for their moms. Pickles McGrew, who was in the next stall, even ran out of the bathroom with his pants down. (His real name isn’t Pickles, by the way. It’s his nickname, because it’s the thing he loves the most. After Billy Thompson put all those crackers in his locker, a small group of people started calling him Crackers instead of Pickles, but it didn’t take.) Apparently Pickles was so scared, he ran down the hall, straight into Mr. Trenton, the fifth-grade teacher, who happened to be holding the winning entry of the fifth-grade solar system mobile competition. Grace Park had just won first prize. She’s pretty much won every competition since preschool. Well, Grace Park’s