Good Ogre Read Free Page B

that maybe you should cry some more.”
    â€œDon’t go using all your big words at once,” Dirk shot back. “You might want to save some for tomorrow.”
    Someone near the back of the bus started to laugh, but when Ricky shot an angry look in that direction, it quickly became a cough.
    â€œCome on, Spencer,” Ricky continued, turning his attention back to Max. “I hear you had an exciting first day at school today. Let’s see, you were tripped in the hallway, wet-willied between classes, had your chocolate milk taken at lunch, towel snapped in the locker room, and, oh yeah, you humiliated yourself in front of the entire school. I’m just worried you might think you’re a loser or something. Oh wait, you totally should feel like a loser, because you are one.”
    Ricky began to howl with laughter, and the rest of the bus followed his lead. Thankfully Sarah didn’t ride the bus home, because she was the kind of person who’dstand up to Ricky. She’d done it before, in fact, last year. She was an expert in judo and had sent Ricky flying in the school hallway. Ricky avoided her now, but that only seemed to make him more venomous toward Max and Dirk.
    â€œDude, we get it, okay?” Dirk said. “You’re big and bad and you’ve proved it once again. So maybe cut him some slack?”
    It was, unfortunately, the wrong thing to say to a kid like Ricky Reynolds. Ricky didn’t look at weakness as an opportunity to step back and declare victory. Ricky saw weakness as an opening for total annihilation. He lifted his hand and pointed at Max. “Look, everyone, I see a tear. Spencer is totally going to start crying like a little baby! Crybaby, crybaby!” he called out, getting the bus to join in. “Crybaby! Crybaby!” Soon the entire bus was shouting at Max like they were back in elementary school. At the next stop Max bolted from his seat, squeezing past Ricky and making for the door.
    The chants continued as the bus began to pull away. Max looked up to see the myriad faces pressed against the windows. He knew he shouldn’t have looked, just like he knew to keep his glasses off in the gym. But thistime he did, and the laughing, mocking expressions stung even more as the bus drove by. And then there was Dirk, who simply mouthed, Dude, that’s not your stop!

    When Max glanced at the clock, it read 12:15 a.m. He was supposed to be in bed by ten thirty, but the online campaign had gone longer than anyone had expected. Max just wasn’t feeling it, however, so he excused himself and hurried and logged out. He was sure there’d be some angry complaints from the others, but he didn’t care. His eyes drifted to the newspaper article pinned next to the monitor. MISSING STUDENTS FOUND , the headline proclaimed. There was a picture of him, Dirk, and Sarah, standing arm in arm in front of the school. Somehow they had to explain their disappearance last year, so Dirk had come up with the story. They told everyone they had been walking home when there was a sudden bright light—and the next thing they knew a number of days had passed. Max thought it was the worst story imaginable, but Sarah said the simplest explanation would work best, no matter how crazy it sounded. So they all agreed to tell a small white lie rather than explain the truth: that Max was the long-lost relative of a great sorcerer andhad accidentally used his spell book to cast them into the future. And that once there, they’d had to fight against Robo-Princess, a decidedly evil unicorn who had been hunting them. Then they’d made a promise to a great dragon king, who sent them back in time to the Magrus (the magical kingdom). There they had to take the Codex of Infinite Knowability to the place it was created—which happened to be the Wizard’s Tower, where a powerful sorcerer had been after Max and his friends all along. They defeated Rezormoor