Bringing Down the Mouse Read Free Page B

Dylan grew and grew and grew, the tenor of their relationship had also changed. Dylan had morphed into an out-and-out bully. If you didn’t play baseball, you were a fair target. And since Charlie had never hit or caught a ball and had basically avoided any kind of object thrown in his general direction since he was about three years old, he was extremely high on Dylan’s list.
    â€œOkay, Numbers,” Dylan grunted. “You know the drill. Hand over the chips.”
    Charlie could feel other eyes on him, and not just Liam’s and Dusty’s. A small crowd had materializedin the front entrance, as it always seemed to do when something like this happened. Charlie knew that Jeremy was somewhere in that crowd, probably quivering with the urge to do something. Charlie also knew that Jeremy wouldn’t dare.
    If this had been some after-school special, or a movie aimed at middle-school kids, this would have been the moment when Charlie Lewis would have become a “man.” He’d have said something witty, tossed the chips into the air, then given Dylan the thrashing of a lifetime. Or perhaps he would’ve said something charming, maybe talk about their shared childhood, and the two of them would have hugged, friends once more.
    Instead, Charlie lowered his eyes as he held the bag of chips out in front of him. Dylan grunted again, disdain written across his face. To him, Charlie was nobody, nothing, just another nerd or geek or dork. He wasn’t even Charlie Lewis, he was Numbers. Just some kid who was good at math but couldn’t catch a baseball.
    â€œYeah, that’s what I thought.”
    Dylan roughly grabbed the bag out of Charlie’s hand, then showed it to Liam and Dusty behind him.
    â€œLooks like breakfast is on Numbers,” he said, laughing. The others joined in, along with some of the watching crowd.
    Charlie sighed. He was about to slink away, when a flash of motion came from Dylan’s left, and the scene suddenly froze like it was painted on a pane of glass.
    Dylan’s eyes went wide as he watched a hand reach out and grab the bag of chips right out of his pincerlike grip. Both he and Charlie turned at the same time to see two kids who had suddenly materialized, as if out of thin air, right next to them. It took Charlie a full beat to recognize the kid standing closest to them, who was now holding the Yum Yum Chippers in his extended right hand. The kid was wearing a faded leather flight jacket and stylish black jeans, and had a wide grin on his angular face.
    â€œLooks like we got a situation here,” he said through his grin. “One bag of chips, two hungry sixth graders. A real cluster jam of supply and demand. So how are we going to work this out?”
    Charlie could tell that Dylan was just as flabbergasted as he was; Dylan’s mouth was wide open, his lower lips starting to quiver. The watching crowd had gone silent as well.
    Everyone at Nagassack knew who Finn Carter was—at least everyone had heard of the seventh grader, even if many had hardly ever seen him in person. He was one of those kids who Charlie had heard whispers about foras long as he could remember. Crazy smart, a boy genius who had been bumped up in classes since the third grade; but nobody would have ever called Finn Carter a nerd. Athletic, handsome, taller than average, with limbs as chiseled and taut as his prominent cheekbones and triangle chin. Finn had been captain of the Nagassack swim team for three years in a row and had been widely considered the best swimmer in Eastern Massachusetts since winning a state championship in fifth grade. Just last year, Finn had taken his team all the way to the national finals, himself the front-runner in four different swimming styles. The team was set to take victory at the meet. And then something happened. The final day of competition, the morning of the main team relay that would have secured Nagassack the gold medal and its first