Nightlight Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the leg of your chair. I think you were unconscious for a couple of seconds,” Mr. Franklin explained.
    “Nope,” I said.
    Mr. Franklin stood up and rubbed both his temples like he was drawing circles there. “Dear God,” he muttered. “Whytoday? Edwart!” he called. “Since you’ve already done this lab with me during your free track, please take Belle to the nurse.”
    “Sorry I was late, Mr. Franklin, but the Fed Challenge Team needed a replacement and—”
    “Just go,” Mr. Franklin said. “And Belle, don’t mention anything about what we’re doing in class today …”
    I looked right into Mr. Franklin’s eyes. He must be some kind of mad scientist! Conducting secret experiments! If things didn’t work out with Edwart, I could always be his Igor, digging up bones and teaching them English for chump change.
    “Right,” I said, winking at Mr. Franklin with one eye, and then the other, to show that I
really
got it.
    “I don’t need your help walking!” I insisted angrily as I slithered out of the classroom on my belly.
    “Edwart, can you carry her?” Mr. Franklin asked.
    “You heard her—she wants some bigger guy to do it,” he said, crossing his arms and hunching his back so I could climb onto it more easily. He stiffened as I took his hair into my hands like reigns and gave a gentle kick to get him going. Then he fainted.
    “Edwart,” I said, poking his crumpled form beneath me. “Are you okay? I think I better carry you to the nurse’s.”
    “No! I can do this!” he said, leaping to his feet. He scooped up my entire eight pounds, four ounces—to be honest, I hadn’t weighed myself in a few years—and we walked slowly out of the classroom. “Come on Edwart—a half-step at a time,” he muttered quietly, not wanting to disturb my faint slumber. “Okay. Now half step at two times.”
    I rested my head on his firm, sweaty shoulder. I felt something stroking my hair. Then I felt Edwart put some of my hair up to his nose, leaving it draped above his lip. He looked good with a long, full mustache. Suddenly he released my hair. He took some Purell from his pocket and frantically rubbed it on his mouth.
    “So, uh, Belle … do you have any pets?”
    “No,” I said sadly, remembering Jared the Iguana. Eventually, I had to return him to where I found him: Mr. Rich’s third grade class.
    “My mom won’t let me have pets,” Edwart said. “It’s not because she thinks I’m not responsible or anything. She just thinks I’d be too nervous to care for them, and she’s probably right. But,” he continued. “I found a bat in my attic and I trapped it! Granted, it was a dead bat.”
    Bats, huh?
I thought, repetitively.
Maybe Edwart had rabies!
    We walked in to the nurse’s office. The nurse was an older woman who needed glasses but preferred to wear them around her neck with a colorful lanyard. She looked up from her novel,
Full Moon
. “One sec,” she said. “I’m almost done with this chapter.” Edwart and I waited.
    “Okay,” she said. “Come on in here and lie down, and I’ll get you some ice for your head.”
    Edwart let me down and the nurse brought me into the adjoining room with two mat-like beds. Edwart watched me leave him sadly, holding his hand out towardss me. Whenthe nurse turned around, he cleverly disguised this gesture by doing the robot.
    After the nurse lay me down, he stood there for a while, looking like the star of an infomercial explaining what happened to his little brother when he smoked weed.
    “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” the nurse asked after a few minutes.
    “Yes.”
    “Wait,” she said suddenly. “Are you Edwart Mullen? I’ve been calling you down to the nurse’s office every day now for a week! You need to get your shots for your trip to Transylvania.”
    “No! I don’t need shots! You have me confused with someone else! You must be thinking of another boy who is much bigger and braver and has a normal name!”
    He turned and