Good Ogre Read Free

plague. Every good disease needs a catchphrase.” Suddenly the plague started chuckling. “Get it? A catch phrase about a virus . . . ­sometimes I crack myself up.”
    Dwaine forced a laugh just to be polite. Thankfully, the plague was content to walk the rest of the way in silence.
    He was led into the spacious palace and taken to a temple where the Lord of Shadows was waiting. Once Dwaine was in his presence, he felt icy fingers wrap their way around his insides. The Maelshadow was every bit as terrifying as in the stories he’d heard, and when the Lord of Shadows spoke, his voice filled the place with a deep rumble, as if some giant had awoken beneath the earth.
    â€œListen,” the Maelshadow commanded, “and I will tell you how Max Spencer, the boy who can read the book, will doom his world.”

CHAPTER ONE
    RETURN OF THE CONQUERING HERO
    M AX STARED AT THE OBJECT of dread hanging in front of him and realized there was nothing to do but face it. It was bad enough that Parkside Middle School’s husky-sized PE shorts had remained unchanged and out of fashion since 1976, but now everyone was staring at him too. And that included the older kids. From Max’s perspective it looked as if the entire ninth grade were sitting in the bleachers, watching him. Kids with actual facial hair were giving him the eye.
    â€œSpencer, Max,” a deep voice grumbled for the second time. A hush settled over the gym as Max finally raised his hand.
    â€œHere.”
    Coach Mattson put his clipboard aside and raised hiswhistle to his mouth. He wore his United States Marine Corps T-shirt and was probably the only guy in the world trained to use a dodgeball ball as a deadly weapon. “On my mark,” he grunted through clenched teeth.
    Max slowly stepped forward, craning his neck in an effort to see how high the rope stretched. It was the first day of the new school year, and how Max performed on the rope climb would determine his fate. He’d either be going into regular PE (where they played games that involved actual score keeping), or remedial PE (where Coach Mattson ran his special military-inspired torture routines). Max had heard the whispered tales of woe that came from remedial PE: pain, humiliation, and guaranteed barfing. Max really, really wanted to be in regular PE, but if there was one exercise he was especially bad at, it was the rope climb.
    Max looked at the students in the bleachers and the line of others waiting impatiently behind him. Maybe he could fake a seizure? Only he wasn’t a particularly good actor, and if he got it wrong, it would just make things worse. Everyone knew you could only play the seizure card once, so you had to make it count.
    â€œCome on, Max, you can do it!” a familiar voicecried out. It was Dirk, his oldest and best friend. Dirk was the kind of kid who ate nothing but junk food and still managed to scuttle up the rope like gravity had left the building. He was also the fastest runner in the entire school, which was a good thing given his tendency to say things that made people want to kick him—even girls.
    â€œYo, don’t break it, Spencer!” another voice shouted, and behind it came a chorus of cackles. That voice belonged to Ricky “the Kraken” Reynolds, and he was about as scary a kid as you could imagine. Undefeated as a wrestler, he’d gained his nickname for all the bones he “cracked” on the mat. It also gave him the kind of reputation perfect for bullying. But Max had seen something even more terrifying when the Kraken had been transformed into something else—a hulking beast with red skin and glowing eyes. That had been in a different time and in a different world, but the memory remained.
    Max jumped for the rope, and the burning in his arms began much too quickly. He struggled to pull himself up, and he imagined he looked like a fish flopping around at the end of a fishing line. Thankfully he