Scraps & Chum Read Online Free PDF Page B

kept her eyes on the ground, as if she were scolding his feet. “ There you are! How many times do I have to tell you not to wander off! You made Mommy worry! ”
    “ The little brat pinched me, ” Nicky said, presenting his arm for her inspection. Behind him, Willy and Greg sucked in their breath, amazed at his impudence.
    The woman leered at the three boys, a frown spreading across her face, her head shaking as if it was them tha t were bothering her son , and yanked the boy down the sidewalk to a parked SUV. She hurriedly strapped him in the backseat and got behind the wheel, glancing sidelong at Nicky ’ s arm and whispering, “ No. ” The kind of no not said in annoyance, but said to affirm that what she was seeing was simply not true.
    Which meant nothing to Nick y and his buddies .
    The boys watched the woman through the SUV ’ s win dow as she fumbled the keys in her lap, snatched them up, and jammed them into the ignition. A tear ran down her cheek as the vehicle pulled away from the curb and drove off. In the rear window, the little boy rudely stuck his tongue out, and Nicky could have sworn the boy ’ s one good eye was red.
    Dark red, he thought, like it was filled with blood.
    “ What the hell was her problem? ” Willy asked, shoving a Milk D ud into his mouth.
    The SUV turned at the intersection, taking the corner fast enough to make the tires squeal, and was gone.
    Nicky looked at his arm once again, saw the wound had swollen to a light purple bump, felt the itchiness intensify. It reminded him of last summer, when he got poison ivy playing in the empty lot at the top of his street where the old gas station had been torn down. Yet this was just a tiny mark, hardly something that should bother him as much as it was. Scratching it, he discovered, only made it worse.
    “ Did you see his eye patch? ” Greg asked.
    “ Yeah, I wonder what happened, ” Willy responded. “ You think he only has one eye, like maybe he was born without it? ”
    “ Or maybe he poked it out somehow, ” Greg said. “ My Mom said that her friend poked her eye out running with scissors. The eye rolled near the dog dish and the dog ate it. ”
    There was a collective “ Eewwww! ”
    “ Aw, that can ’ t be true, ” said Nicky, still rubbing the welt. “ She ’ s just trying to scare you. Like when she told you not to make faces because you ’ d stay that way, and you were afraid to stick your tongue out when the doctor wanted to check your tonsils. ”
    “ It really happened. I swear! ”
    “ No it didn ’ t. ”
    “ Yeah it did! ”
    “ Did not! ”
    “ Come on, ” Willy said. “ Let ’ s get home before Star Trek starts. It ’ s the one where Q tires to kill Piccard. ”
    “ Q always tries to kill Piccard, ” Greg said, rolling his eyes. “ What ’ s new about that? ”
    They jumped on their BMX bikes like cowboys mounting stallions, and crossed the main road at the intersection, heading toward Sunders Lane and Nicky ’ s house. T hey each made sure to jump the same sidewalk cracks and spit at Ms. Hutchinson ’ s mailbox--she lived on the corner of Sunders and never gave out Halloween candy. At the vacant lot that used to be the gas station, they jumped the bike ramp they ’ d made earlier in the day—-a piece of plywood angled up onto a cinderblock.
    With each pump of his feet, Nicky felt the bruise on his arm growing larger, hotter, itchier. He scratched it repeatedly as he pedaled, a couple times even taking both hands off the handlebars. Could it be infected? God knew what crud the brat had touched that day. And then he remembered the eye. The one reddish eye. Was it really red, he wondered, or was I seeing things, a trick of sunlight through the window?
    They skidded into Nicky ’ s driveway, gravel spitting into the air, dropped their bikes on the grass and raced to the front door. Together they went to the rumpus room downstairs to watch Star Trek and satisfy their sweettooths before they had