The Get Rich Quick Club Read Online Free PDF Page A

Rob said. He got one of Quincy’s round pillows and threw it up in the sky.
    While the pillow was in the air, Eddie and Teddy were chasing each other around, not looking where they were running. They didn’t see Quincy as they gotclose to her, and Quincy didn’t see them because she was looking into the viewfinder. I was the only one who could tell there was going to be a collision.
    â€œWatch out!” I yelled.
    It was too late. Eddie Bogle slammed into Quincy just as she pushed the button on the camera. He knocked her to the ground.
    â€œCripes! You little germs!” Quincy shouted. I had never seen her so angry. “Can’t you jacks-in-the-box behave? Pull your socks up! You ruined it, you dumb wallies!” 10
    â€œI didn’t mean to!” Eddie whined. He put his hands over his face in shame.
    â€œOh, man, that was our last shot!” Rob said disgustedly.
    We all helped Quincy get up off the ground. Rob picked up the camera. It seemed to be okay. The picture Quincy had taken was lying in the dirt. She picked it up and was about to toss it on the pile ofrejects, but the image was beginning to come up, so she watched it.
    â€œHang on a tick,” 11 she said, some excitement building in her voice.
    The rest of us gathered around for a peek. As the picture developed, we could see that it didn’t look like any of the other photos Quincy had taken. The impact of Eddie smashing into her just as she snapped the picture had shaken the camera. The picture was fuzzy, but not so fuzzy that you couldn’t make it out. There it was—a lifelike UFO hovering over the trees.
    â€œWell, I’ll be stuffed!” Quincy exclaimed. “It’s a ripper!” 12

8
The National Truth
    T he five of us gathered around looking at our photo, like football players in a huddle.
    â€œIt’s perfect,” Rob announced. “Just perfect.”
    â€œIt’s dinkie-di,” Quincy said. “This snap is crash hot.” 1
    â€œI gotta pee,” Teddy said.
    â€œThere’s only one way that anybody would be able to tell this photo is a fake,” I told the others. “And that’s if one of us spilled the beans.”
    â€œWhat do beans have to do with it?” asked Eddie.
    â€œIt’s an expression, dingbat,” I told Eddie. “It meansto reveal a secret.”
    So together we made a pact. A solemn vow. The five of us agreed that we would tell everybody we had been out in the field playing when this UFO buzzed by. It stopped over the trees, hovered there for a second or two, and then it zipped away. We just happened to have a camera with us and were lucky enough to snap this fuzzy picture.
    That was the story, and we all promised to stick with it. We agreed that if any one of us revealed that we had faked the photo, terrible, horrible things would happen to that kid. I thought it would be a good idea to seal our vow with blood. Nobody wanted to bleed, so we used grape juice instead.
    That afternoon, we all rode our bikes over to the supermarket. They’ve got a rack of newspapers by the cash register that aren’t really newspapers. They look like newspapers, but the stories don’t sound anything like the stories you read in regular newspapers. WOMAN GROWS PUMPKIN IN THE SHAPE OF THE PRESIDENT’S HEAD ! JFK LIVES … IN THE WHITE HOUSE BASEMENT ! MY TWIN BROTHER IS FROM MARS ! That sort of thing.
    All of them looked like the kind of newspaper that might go for a story about UFOs. We decided to buy one called the National Truth . The cover headline read: METEOR ON COURSE TO DESTROY EARTH NEXT WEDNESDAY .
    We dug into our pockets and came up with $2.40. “Will we get this back?” asked Rob.
    â€œListen,” I said. “It’s our capital. Think big. Think of it as an investment.”
    â€œOh, great,” said Rob. “We don’t get it back.”
    â€œCan we at least get some gum with it?” asked