Pigboy Read Free Page B

saying maybe we should just go home and can we see her and stuff like that.
    I was afraid the guy was going to blow up again. He looked kind of irritated. But he just rubbed his head with his hands a few times and asked everyone to quiet down.

    His face changed. He sounded almost nice.
    He said, “Look...Ah...I owe you an apology. See, I wasn’t really expecting you guys. I got a lot of stuff to do today. I got a little stressed out when you showed up.” He gave this weird shrug. I almost felt sorry for him. You could tell it was hard for him to say this stuff.
    He looked at the ground and just sort of blurted the rest out. “I apologized to your teacher and promised to manage my anger better. She thanked me and everything was going good, but then she didn’t feel so hot anymore. I told her— don’t worry; I’ll look after you guys. She thought that was real nice.”
    He looked up and smiled. He had a gold tooth.
    â€œWe’ll let her lie down for a while,” he said, “and then why don’t we...”
    I never found out what he planned to do with us. Before the guy could say another word, my allergies kicked in. Kicked in big-time.

    I’d been trying my best not to sneeze, but there was so much hay and dust and grossness in that barn that I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I tensed my whole body. I squeezed my nostrils together. I held my breath and scrunched up my face.
    It didn’t do any good.
    The sneeze was like a rocket. It started in my gut and worked its way up my back and into my eyes and nose. I couldn’t hold it anymore. It exploded out my face.
    It was so loud these girls screamed as if they were being attacked by a pit bull. The worst thing was those wads of Kleenex shot right across the barn like two bloody little bullets.
    For a second, nobody could figure out what had happened. There was complete silence, then somebody took a closer look at the Kleenex and realized what it was. People groaned and pointed and shrieked. Everyone turned around and stared at me with this “Ewww” look on their faces.
    I said, “Excuseme,” which wasapparently hilarious. What else was I supposed to say?
    I just stood there feeling gross and stupid until the guy screamed, “
SHUT UP!
”
    Somebody in the back was trying not to laugh, but everybody else shut up pretty fast. I felt another sneeze starting. This one was going to be even worse than the last one. It was going to be messy. I could just tell. I raised my hand.
    â€œWhat do you want?” he said. He said it like he’d just about had enough of me.
    I squeaked out, “Is there a washroom I could use?”
    â€œI dunno,” he said.
    The principal said Mr. van Wart had only been in the country a few years. Still, you’d think that was plenty of time for him to figure out if there was a washroom on his property.
    I probably should have realized something was up then, but my mind was totally out-of-order. The new sneeze had taken over my body. It yanked my belly out and threw my head back and expelledtwo giant jellyfish out my nose. Then the blood started again.
    Everybody screamed. People stepped back into fresh piles of manure—on purpose!—to get away from me. I just stood in the middle of this big empty circle with my head down and my arms out and all this slime gushing out my nostrils.
    Even the guy was grossed out. He was having trouble managing his anger again.
    â€œYou got a problem?” he said.
    â€œI need to get my allergy pills,” I said.
    â€œWhere are they?” he said.
    â€œIn the bus,” I said, trying to keep those jellyfish away from my mouth.
    He went, “I told you! The bus is off limits. Your teacher’s sick. We don’t want to disturb her.”
    â€œI really need a Kleenex,” I said. He wasn’t happy.
    â€œWho’s got a Kleenex?” he said.
    Nobody.
    Nobody had a Kleenex. I was the only