The End of FUN Read Online Free PDF

stop, with a small Plexiglas awning, some warning signs, and a single plastic bench with a good view of the power lines. I sat down, waited for my sister to show, and started to twitch.
    One of the things they don’t tell you when you start having FUN ® is the part about the twitches. What happens is you get so used to waving your hands around selecting bonuses or whatever that after a while your body starts to have these jerky nerve reactions. Like, you’ll just be sitting there and suddenly your hand will shoot up out of nowhere and start waving around.
    So I purchased a smókz ™ .
    YAY! for smókz ™ , cancer-free virtual soothing cigarettes, the best solution for the twitches. The only problem is they cost so much FUN ® . But at least they give you something to do with your hands. And the exhale is worth it. The virtual smoke turns into a rainbow or a unicorn or an advertisement for new Hydroburst ™ Fruit Bites or whatever, so that’s cool.
    I smoked my smókz ™ . It was freezing out there. Maybe my hands were just twitching because of the cold. When I exhaled, a cloud of miniature lambs appeared and mixed with the fog of my real breath and sang to me about new Lambsoft ® acne concealer—and then Homie ™ popped up.
    > what up original boy_2?
    u have 8 new message(s)!
    Eight?
We’d passed through a no-signal zone outside Lovelock, and I’d missed them, all eight—one from my dad and the other seven from Evie.
    Here’s how they went:
    In the first message Evie said she was sick. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she felt like crap and she was afraid it might be contagious. In the second message she gave me the symptoms, which included nausea, congestion, fever, fatigue, and itchiness. In her third message she restated the main points of the first two messages, coughing now and again for effect, suggesting that instead of risking deadly infection at her place, maybe I should crash with Dad. In her fourth message she said she’d thought about it some more and she was sure that’s what I should do. In her fifth and sixth messages she told me to call her as soon as I got her message(s).
    In her seventh message she just coughed and hung up.
    Typical. First of all, my sister was and is a flaming hypochondriac. Autoimmune disorders, vitamin deficiencies, tropical diseases—you name it, she’s had it. And always at the most opportune times. Like how she got shingles from the German foreign exchange student during fitness week. Or the time she came down with the flu right in the middle of summer, just before swim lessons started.
    Second of all, she was always trying to play peacemaker between Dad and me. Maybe she’d set me up—because in
his
message, Dad told me Evie was sick and offered me a place to stay.
    So I sent a message to Evie:
    original boy_2: hey evie no prob i’m on my way to dads
    And then I sent the same thing to my dad, only with the names switched around.
    What I thought I’d do was crash with my friend Oso instead. But when I called him, no one answered. Straight to voice mail. So I left a message. And then I started walking.

Maybe I’d get a room. Why not treat myself? I deserved it, right? But the train depot was conveniently located at the end of town, pretty much as far from any hotel as possible while still being within city limits. Homie ™ suggested I head for the Western Inn by Walmart, but I checked it out on SleepHunt ® and the price was ridiculous, so I headed downtown. Which is how I ended up at the King Cowboy hotel and casino (YAY!).
    Its glory days were long over, but the King Cowboy still had that crazy casino feel—a jangly labyrinth of lights, mirrors, and games. A thousand chances to win or lose. Grandpa told me that whenever a machine paid out too often or too much, it was his job to “fix” it. Tonight the casino was mostly empty, and no one was winning as far as I