Zeke Bartholomew Read Online Free PDF Page B

shining directly into the path I was swimming toward. The light flooded my eyes, blinding me. It was coming from the bridge I’d just fallen off. The goons were looking for me.
    Yesterday I had been in math class. Ms. Connelly was glaring at me because I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t hear her ask me a question. I thought I was in big trouble then. I didn’t know what big trouble was.
    When my vision adjusted to the darkness, I could see that the goons were climbing down the riverbank to try to spot me from there. I could hold my breath for a minute—two, tops—but these guys were pros.
    Advantage goons.
    The light drew closer. The goons would spot me in a matter of seconds. Then I heard a voice, and my heart froze in my chest.
    â€œLance has to be here somewhere.” It was the goon who had sat next to me in the car. “Kid fell straight down. I heard a splash. He’s in the water.”
    â€œUgh, I have spaghetti strands in my hair,” another goon said.
    â€œHe’s smarter than we thought,” the first voice said. “Obviously Derek Lance has the ability to innately control his gag reflex. Mr. Le Carré should have warned us about who we were going up against.”
    â€œHe’s still a kid, and there are three of us. All we gotta do is find him.”
    â€œI owe Lance a broken leg. Maybe two. Ugh, I think there’s meatball in my nostril.”
    I’d thrown up dozens of times in my life, and never once had it been considered “resourceful.” But that awkward sense of pride died down when I remembered that these goons still thought I was Derek Lance, and just a moment ago they’d threatened to kill me. I decided it wasn’t the best course of action to wait around for them to find me.
    The problem was I didn’t know where to go. If I made any noise they might hear me, and I didn’t know how far the other riverbank was.
    Through the dim light I could see steel supports rising from the water like rusty gray sentries. A bed of reeds and lily pads swayed underneath the bridge. And that’s when I got the idea that I thought might just save my life.
    I dug into my pocket and found the pen I’d used to sift through Derek Lance’s trash. At first I wondered if I could throw it at one of the lackeys, maybe do some sort of boomerang thing where it knocked all three of them out cold. Then I remembered that I have the arm strength of a wet noodle. Maybe I could write a note on a leaf, stick it inside a bottle. Yeah, right.
    I uncapped the pen. I must not have been paying attention, because I felt the cartridge crack. That’s when the idea came to me. Maybe I wasn’t as stupid as I thought I was…
    I worked the barrel of the pen back and forth until the cartridge split in two. I let the closed-off end float away and brought the other end to my lips. I blew as hard as I could. A nasty, inky taste flooded my mouth. Blech. This had better work…
    I dove below the surface and quietly swam over to the reed bed, wary of creating too much attention and drawing the goons to my position. Once I was nestled in with the reeds, I pinched the ink tube, pulled it out, and let it drift away. Then I brought the newly created breathing tube to my mouth, ducked underwater, and hovered just below the surface with the tip of my new breathing straw poking just above the waterline.
    Then I waited.
    I couldn’t draw much air through the tube, and I had to tread water just below the surface to keep the tube out of the water. I wouldn’t be able to do this for very long. My arm muscles were growing stiff from treading water, but my life depended on it.
    Just then, I saw a wave of light sweep across the water directly above where I was hiding. Then another. Then another. My eyes widened, water stinging them. Each of the three goons was scanning the river with a flashlight. I was scared to breathe, scared to move. What if the breathing