Simon Thorn and the Wolf's Den Read Online Free PDF Page A

followed.
    â€œDo the animals talk back? Do they tell you how worthless you are, or are they too stupid to figure it out?” said Bryan, and Simon walked even faster. Short as he was, the gang of four boys caught up to him easily and surrounded him. Bryan pushed Simon backward, and another boy ripped his bag from him. “Answer me, Psycho.”
    Simon kept his mouth shut. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. He glanced around, looking for anything he might be able to use against them. Sticks, pebbles, a bench in the distance—
    â€œNo girls here to save you this time,” said Bryan, shoving him again. One of the eighth graders caught him and pushed him forward. Back and forth he went, until he was so jarred that he could barely keep his balance.
    Shoving. He could handle this. Just as long as it didn’t get any worse. But within seconds, Bryan made a fist.
    â€œI don’t care how crazy you are, Psycho,” he said. “If you think you can humiliate me in front of everyone and get away with it—”
    Another snarl echoed through the park, louder and more vicious than the first. It sounded like nothing Simon had ever heard before. All four boys started, and Bryan paused, distracted.
    A massive dog stepped out from behind a tree, gnashing its teeth. It wasn’t like any pet Simon had ever seen. With its gray fur and sharp fangs, it looked almost like a wolf.
    No, Simon realized. Not
almost
like a wolf. It
was
a wolf.
    Without thinking, Simon made what was possibly the stupidest move in his life: he kneed Bryan in the stomach. Hard. And as Bryan doubled over, Simon pushed him to the ground, grabbed his backpack, and made a run for it.
    The eighth graders shouted, but a howl cut them off. Simon tore down the path. His hair whipped around his face, and his backpack hung off the crook of his elbow and banged against his knees, but he didn’t stop, not even when he bolted out of Central Park. His lungs burned, and several pedestrians swore as he shoved past them, but he reached his building in record time.
    He ran up the stairs, stopping only when he got to his apartment. As he struggled to catch his breath, he listened for any sign of someone following him, but the building was quiet. Exhausted, he dropped his backpack and groped around for the key. What was he going to tell Darryl? Nothing about the eagle or the wolf, that was for sure. Had the vice principal called about Bryan and—
    â€œSimon?”
    Suddenly the door opened. Instead of his uncle, however, a woman stood inside, wearing jeans and combat boots and brandishing Darryl’s baseball bat. Simon froze, dumbfounded.
    â€œMom?”

3
    MISCHIEF OF MICE
    Simon’s mother dropped the baseball bat and caught him in her arms. She was warm and smelled like fallen leaves, and her blond braid pressed against his cheek, but Simon was too dazed to notice much more than that. After everything that had happened today, part of him wondered if Bryan Barker had knocked him out and this was all a dream.
    It wasn’t a dream though. She was real, and she was finally home. He hugged her fiercely. “Missed you.”
    She ran her fingers through his shaggy hair. “I missed you, too. Look at you. Look how tall you are.”
    â€œI’m not tall. You’re just short.” The last time he’d seen her, he hadn’t even come up to her shoulders. Now he was nearly eye level with her. His insides pinched as he realized how much time they’d lost. “Why are you here?”
    â€œWould you rather I not be?” she asked as she ushered him inside.
    â€œNo, I just . . .” He trailed off. His mother glanced up and down the hallway before she closed the door, almost as if she was expecting someone. “You only ever come on holidays or my birthday.”
    â€œI don’t need a special occasion to see you, Simon,” said his mother, but her smile looked more like a grimace. Something