Extra Life

Extra Life Read Online Free PDF

Book: Extra Life Read Online Free PDF
Author: Derek Nikitas
Tags: thriller
a boardwalk coin-press machine.
    Noting that my forehead didn’t quite clear the height of his chin, I said, “I’m not going to dignify your prejudices, son. You shouldn’t judge and you can’t change a person, so what’s your motivation?”
    Asshat took hard breaths through his nostrils. Half the class was through with the mile run and was now converging around our late-breaking event. A few had their phones out, ready to snap mementos for instant upload.
    Glancing back, I found myself alone against the enemy. Paige was storming off toward the school, already halfway gone. So much for her support.
    When I turned back to Asshat, I saw instead a beautifully composed close-up shot of knuckles. It was Asshat’s fist, barreling at my face. Flash bulbs burst all at once, and the fresh-mowed grass tasted just like sprout-and-hummus wraps.

O NE PUNCH from Asshat, and I’m snoozing for a good thirty seconds. A while after the “fight,” I found myself alone in a Port City Academy administrative conference room full of fake potted plants. I leaned back with an ice pack patched over my throbbing left eye socket, waiting for the verdict.
    The clock made its ascent toward two p.m.
    My cell phone jolted with a text. Four characters from Paige Davis: WTF?
    I thumbed out a response: did I win ur favor?
    ur an idiot
    still need your mad camera skillz! I sent.
    Radio silence from Paige after that.
    The conference room door eased open with a light-knuckle tap. I was expecting the vice principal, but it was Dad instead. Kasper Vale, escaped from his attic habitat, in sweat pants and a flannel, nursing a travel mug from an Azalea Festival ten years ago. His eyes were a little blinky from the unexpected run-in with natural sunlight. Mom was usually the contact parent for my fiascoes, but she had a drug company to manage. With no job, it appeared Dad would be pinch-hitting today.
    “How you holding up?” he asked me.
    “I didn’t know they were going to call you in.”
    “You’re supposed to say, ‘You should see the other guy.’”
    “The other guy is subhuman, and I didn’t hit him,” I said. Had to make my innocence known right away, since my track record liked to testify against me. In my defense, I’d been red flag free for over a year. My last and only misstep at Port City Academy was that terrible prank on Connie before we were friends.
    Vice Principal Skaggs came in and slapped a file folder onto the table top: Vale, Horace written on the tab.
    My rap sheet, thick enough to include my riotous days in public school, i.e. my freshman-year misdemeanor arrest for breaking into the high school’s sports equipment shed, stealing the alligator mascot costume and hanging it by its legs, bungee-style, from the nearby pedestrian bridge that arched over Market Street. This was sadly a step down from my original plan to get dressed in the costume and dangle myself from the bridge. In the moment of truth, I couldn’t bet my life on my knot-tying skills after only a two-week stint in Boy Scouts.
    I had two accomplices, dipshits I didn’t associate with anymore. One of them brought the video recording to the police and set loose the process that landed me in private school. I’m sure all the sordid details were available in Skaggs’ file, indicting me before I could even get a fair hearing.
    After the necessary handshake, Skaggs gave Dad his best Crest-whitened smile and said, “I believe Mrs. Vale will be joining us in a moment?”
    “She will?” Dad and I said, tensing up, in unison.
    As Skaggs predicted, Mom blustered in. She shouted, “gotta go,” into her cell phone and thumbed away the call. Whipped her attention straight at me. Her busy hands tried to decide whether they’d throttle my neck or pet my head. “Let me see it,” she demanded.
    When I showed her my eye, she hissed and shook her head. Finally Mom noticed her husband slouching in the corner. She said, “Kasper,” like he really was a friendly
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