Strike 2: Dawn of the Daybreaker Read Online Free PDF Page A

“If she likes him ‘cuz he’s funny, that’s friggin’ bull.”
    “You should just be happy for her, dude. She really likes him, I can tell.”
    “What, are they, like, going out or something?”
    The bell rang. Chad headed down the hall toward the cafeteria.
    “Gotta go to lunch,” he said. “See ya.”
    Tobin yelled out after him. “Hey—are they going out? I thought they were only… hanging out or something. Are they really going out? Hey—are they?”
    Chad turned around with a wave and a laugh. “Later, Tobin!”
    Tobin stood in the hallway as the rest of the students rushed into their classrooms. Soon he was standing all by himself.
    “Tommy Evans,” he said with disgust. “I’m funnier than Tommy Evans.”
    ***
     
    At
8:07
that night, Tobin was lying on his bed in his room and staring at the ceiling. He was hoping to get some homework done since he didn’t have to work at the grocery store that night, but, instead, he couldn’t stop thinking about everything he had learned from Chad that day.
    Tobin reached over to his nightstand and grabbed his phone. He quickly typed out a text message to his friend Julie Meyers:
    HEY JULIE. AM I FUNNIER THAN TOMMY EVANS?
    Tobin waited for a response from Julie, but instead heard a voice from near his bedroom window.
    “Who’s Tommy Evans?”
    “Ah!” Tobin screamed. Startled, he looked across the room: his robotic friend Scatterbolt was sitting on the edge of his open bedroom window. The three-and-a-half-foot tall, purple-and-silver robot had recently begun a habit of climbing up to Tobin’s room when he needed to ask Tobin a question, even though Tobin and Orion had repeatedly told him it was dangerous, since it had a good chance of making the evening news if someone saw a robot walking around Bridgton , Massachusetts . But, Scatterbolt insisted, he always made sure to only visit Tobin when it was safe and nobody was around, so there wasn’t anything to worry about. Plus, it was worth the risk; Earth was so much more interesting than boring old Capricious, anyway.
    “Oops, sorry, Tobin,” Scatterbolt laughed, hopping up onto a chair next to Tobin’s bed. “What are you doing?”
    “Just talking to my friend. I’m supposed to be doing homework, but…I’m not.”
    Scatterbolt looked at the screen of Tobin’s phone.
    “Oh. You talk to your friends on this a lot, don’t you?”  
    “Only about twenty-two hours a day.”
    “But you never use it for its intended purpose, right? You don’t use your voice, you only write with your fingers.”
    Tobin thought it over. “Ya know what, I actually kind of forgot that I could make calls with this thing.”
    Tobin’s phone BUZZED ; he had a reply from Julie. Scatterbolt leaned over and read the message.
    “This girl likes you, you know,” the robot said.
    “No, she doesn’t,” Tobin replied.
    “Yeah, she does. Look. She sent you one of these guys.”
    Scatterbolt mimicked a winking emoticon; he closed one eye and smiled brightly.
    Tobin laughed and looked to the screen. Julie had written:
    OF COURSE YOU
ARE
;)
    Tobin was surprised. “Whoa, you’re right. That’s a total sign of flirting. Good call, SB.”
    Tobin typed on the phone, then sent a reply. He and Scatterbolt waited for a response, staring at the screen.
    “Is she gonna write back soon?” the robot asked. “This is really exciting.” The robot suddenly slapped himself in the forehead. “Oh man, I almost forgot! Orion wanted me to come here so we could head to the police station right away.”
    “Why?”
    “Officer Randy found something. I don’t know what it is, but Orion sounded pretty worried, so it must be a big deal.”
    A BUZZ! came from Tobin’s phone.
    “Do you think it can wait a couple minutes?” the boy asked.
    “Yeah, definitely,” Scatterbolt replied, leaning in closer to get a better look at the phone. “What’d she say? Write back, write back.”
    ***
     
    Forty miles away, Orion was waiting near the