My Gym Teacher Is an Alien Overlord Read Online Free PDF Page B

I looked around at the concerned faces at the table. Everyone was thinking the same thing, but no one wanted to ask. It was up to me. “So,” I began, choosing my words with care, “will you get another job, or are you going to be hanging around the house from now on?”
    â€œLuke!” Mom snapped.
    â€œYou idiot!” Zack punched me in the arm.
    Dad just laughed. “Don’t you worry about me, Luke. That job was like the Hobbit movies: it went on
way
too long. A fresh start will be good for me. I can’t wait to see what the future has in store. Bring it on!”
    And then he sighed and looked down at his salmon fillet.

The Breaking of the Fellowship
    It was the last hour of the last day before the fumigation break. The corridors swarmed with students heading to their final classes before one precious and unexpected week off. I hadn’t seen Serge all day. I finally caught up with him and we were carried along in the noisy surge. Serge had geography and I had art, so we were going our separate ways. I was about to learn that that was true in more ways than one.
    â€œWhat do you mean, you can’t come over?” I said. “We have important S.C.A.R.F. business to discuss.”
    Serge gave me an awkward look. “It is my
maman
. After the business with Miss Dunham, she says that you are a bad influence and I must avoid you.”
    â€œAvoid
me
?” I was outraged.
    â€œ
Oui
. I have been wanting to tell you all day, but it is difficult for me. You are my best friend, and you are a sensitive soul.”
    â€œI’m not sensitive,” I snapped. “Or a bad influence. I’m harmless. Well,
mostly
harmless.”
    â€œI know. That is what
I
said. Luke Parker may appear to be full of confidence and
le
smart aleck, but scratch the surface and beneath you will encounter an anxious boy who simply wants to be accepted.”
    â€œI wouldn’t have put it quite like that,” I mumbled.
    We were approaching the geography classroom. “There was talk at the dinner table that I should move to another school,” said Serge quietly. “I would not even mention it, but it was over the cheese course.”
    This was awful. Serge was not only my best friend; he was currently my only friend. I’d gone to meet Lara at lunchtime in order to tell her my theory about what had brought down the airplanes, but she hadn’t showed, no doubt off saving some old people from a burning retirement home. What with her bailing on me to go and be Dark Flutter, if Serge left, then I’d be that kid at the back of the school cafeteria eating his sandwiches alone.
    Serge couldn’t look me in the eye. “I am sorry,” he said. “Truly.”
    I could still rescue the situation. After all, he and I had faced the end of the world together and come out the other side. Nothing could separate us, not even his
maman
. All I had to do was find the right words.
    â€œFine,” I said sharply. “I don’t need you either.” With that I marched off along the corridor and didn’t look back.
    Lara sent a vole with an apology. I opened the note in the tree house, where I had retreated as soon as I got home from my bruising day at school. I was alone, apart from a heaped plate of crustless peanut butter sandwiches and a double-chocolate milkshake. And the vole.
    The note confirmed my earlier suspicions. Lara had missed our lunch meeting because of superhero commitments. She’d written that she would try to pop by later, but her mom was taking her to buy new shoes. That said it all. I came a distant second to a pair of ballet flats. First Serge, now Lara. And forget about Zack; he’d been far too important to pay me any attention for ages.
    The vole sat on the floor, gazing up. I could swear it looked sorry for me.
    â€œWhat are you waiting for?” I asked. “A tip?”
    The vole said nothing.
    â€œWell, I’ll give you a