Working for Bigfoot Read Online Free PDF

through. You have to show them.”
    “You mean hurt them.”
    “Not necessarily,” I said quietly. “But guys like those two jokers only respect strength. If you show them that you have it, they’ll get the idea.”
    Irwin frowned harder. “No one ever talked to me about it like that before.”
    “I guess not,” I said.
    “I’m…I’m scared of doing that.”
    “Who wouldn’t be?” I asked him. “But the only way to beat your fears is to face them. If you don’t, they’re going to keep on doing this to you, and then others, and someday someone is going to get hurt bad. It might even be those two jackasses who get hurt—if someone doesn’t make them realize that they can’t go through life acting like that.”
    “They aren’t really bad guys,” Irwin said slowly. “I mean…to anyone but me. They’re okay to other people.”
    “Then I’d say that you’d be helping them as well as yourself, Irwin.”
    He nodded slowly and took a deep breath. “I’ll…I’ll think about it.”
    “Good,” I said. “Thinking for yourself is the most valuable skill you’ll ever learn.”
    “Thank you, Harry,” he said.
    I rose and picked up my broom. “You bet.”
    I went back to sweeping one end of the cafeteria. Coach Pete stood at the other end. Irwin returned to his writing—and the Bully Brothers came in.
    They approached as before, moving between the tables, splitting up to come at Irwin from two sides. They ignored me and Coach Pete, closing in on Irwin with impatient eagerness.
    Irwin’s pencil stopped scratching when they both were about five feet away from him, and without looking up he said in a sharp, firm voice, “Stop.”
    They did. I could see the face of only one of them, but the bully was blinking in surprise.
    “This is not cool,” Irwin said. “And I’m not going to let you do it anymore.”
    The brothers eyed him, traded rather feral smiles, and then each of them lunged at Irwin and grabbed an arm. They hauled him back with surprising speed and power, slamming his back onto the floor. One of them started slapping at his eyes and face while the other produced a short length of heavy rubber tubing, jerked Irwin’s shirt up, and started hitting him on the stomach with the hose.
    I gritted my teeth and reached for the handle of my mop—except it wasn’t a mop that was poking up out of the bucket. It was my staff, a six-foot length of oak as thick as my circled thumb and forefinger. If this was how the Bully Brothers started the beating, I didn’t even want to think about what they’d do for a finale. Svartalf or not, I couldn’t allow things to go any further before I stepped in.
    Coach Pete’s dark eyes glittered at me from behind his sports magazine, and he crooked a couple of fingers on one hand in a way that no human being could have. I don’t know what kind of magical energy the svartalf was using, but he was good with it. There was a sharp crackling sound, and the water in the mop bucket froze solid in an instant, trapping my staff in place.
    My heart sped up. That kind of magical control was a bad, bad sign. It meant that the svartalf was better than me—probably a lot better. He hadn’t used a focus of any kind to help him out, the way my staff would help me focus and control my own power. If we’d been fighting with swords, that move would have been the same as him clipping off the tips of my eyelashes without drawing blood. This guy would kill me if I fought him.
    I set my jaw, grabbed the staff in both hands, and sent a surge of my will and power rushing down its rune-carved length into the entrapping ice. I muttered “Forzare” as I twisted the staff, and pure energy lashed out into the ice, pulverizing it into chunks the size of gravel.
    Coach Pete leaned forward slightly, eager, and I saw his eyes gleam. Svartalves were old-school, and their culture had been born in the time of the Vikings. They thought mortal combat was at least as fun as it was scary, and their