Red Rider's Hood Read Free Page A

be yellow—an ugly yellow, like the stuff you cough up when you’ve got the flu. And smack in the middle of those ugly eyes were dark pupils that seemed to go all the way to the back of his head—and then some.
    â€œYou don’t get what’s happening here, do you?” Cedric growled as he held me back against the wall. He was older than me, bigger than me, and his biceps were as thick as my legs, but I didn’t care.
    â€œYeah, I know exactly what’s happening here,” I growled right back at him. “You’re ripping off money from a poor defenseless old lady. That’s low even for a scuzzball like you.”
    I thought I’d get a five-knuckle brunch for that, but instead he laughed. The rest of the Wolves laughed as well, copyingwhatever Cedric did—as if they’d be in trouble if they didn’t.
    â€œYou don’t know a stinkin’ thing.” Then he leaned closer, whispering into my ear. “There are worse things than being robbed…” I could smell the sick old-meat stench on his breath, like he really
had
eaten my grandmother. “…worse things than dyin’ even. You be a good boy, Little Red, and maybe you’ll get to live awhile. Maybe you’ll get to die in your own natural time.”
    â€œI’d rather die than have to stand here looking at your ugly face. Your mama should’ve got a refund for it when you were born.”
    He squeezed my throat again. “You watch yourself, Little Red Rider. You don’t want to get me angry. Not today. Definitely not today.”
    â€œWhy?” I dared to ask. “What makes today so special?”
    â€œBecause,” said Cedric, “tonight there’s a full moon.”

3

“This Isn’t Exactly the Date I Had in Mind”
    M y dad always said that belonging to a gang was a way for small-minded people to feel big. He says it works like this: You take a whole bunch of people with more attitude than brain, and maybe if you’re lucky all those small brains will add up to one full brain. But I have a different theory. I think it’s like multiplication, not addition. Half-a-brain times half-a-brain equals a quarter-brain. You get enough half-brains together, and you end up with cockroach intelligence. That’s what I figured I had here in dealing with the Wolves.
    â€œTake him down,” Cedric shouted, now that he had the money sack in his clutches. Taking someone down usually meant killing them. Is that what they had done to Grandma? I didn’t want to think about it. On Cedric’s orders, Marvin Flowers grabbed me by my shirt, lifted me off the ground, and hauled me out of Grandma’s room.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Marvin?” I said, almost choking on my fear. “The fifty I gave you before wasn’t enough? You had totake the rest? That’s worse than begging for change on street corners.”
    â€œI ain’t no beggar,” he said, annoyed at the suggestion. “Cedric assigned me to case out cars and people at that corner. Easier to do it while I’m washing windows.”
    â€œCase them out for what?”
    â€œFor anything we decide we need.”
    â€œLike my grandmother’s money?”
    He snarled at that, baring that gold canine tooth of his, holding me even higher off the ground as he moved me through the house. “It’s that money that saved you,” he said. “Getting that blood money put Cedric in a good mood.”
    Saved me?
I thought.
But didn’t Cedric tell him to “take me down”?
    â€œSo, you’re not gonna kill me?”
    â€œNot right now, but don’t ask me about later.”
    I thought of saying something about his sister—about how we were supposed to go out tonight. But then I thought, what if that whole thing was a scam? What if she had been just a decoy so that the Wolves could get to Grandma’s house? I’m sure that’s what