The Detention Club Read Free Page A

say.
    Every day at recess Drew and I would go about collecting something, anything, just to be the best at it. By the end of recess everyone was obsessed with trying to collect it, too. One day it would be those white pebbles over by the tire swings. Another day it would be strips of bark off the dogwood trees lining the main entrance (the principal wasn’t thrilled with that one). Drew and I collected a pile of acorns one recess that would have made any squirrel jealous.
    For two years that’s the main thing me and Drew did when we hung out—we collected stuff. And for the entire summer before sixth grade we’d been collecting just one thing: mica. Mica is that shiny, glasslike flaky stuff that you can find on boulders in the woods. It’s really brittle and cool to look at, and once I peeled off my first piece, I knew I had to have more. Drew did, too. Back in the spring me and Drew realized that all the boulders behind his house are covered with the stuff, so we started collecting it, and we brought some pieces on the last day of school to show our classmates, and everyone agreed to have a contest to see who could collect the most over the summer. Drew and I made a vow to not count the collection until the end of the summer so it would be a huge surprise to us when we finally tallied the numbers.
    I made the final turn onto the stretch of Brook Street with Drew’s house on it. He was waiting for me out on his front stoop, and waved when he saw me.
    â€œWhat’s in your back pocket?” he asked.
    â€œWhich pocket?” I asked, as if I didn’t know there was a gigantic notebook sticking out of it.
    He rolled his eyes.
    â€œYour back right pocket.”
    â€œWhy, that would be my right butt cheek,” I said, and we both laughed.
    â€œDid you just make that up?” he asked.
    â€œYup! Now ask me what’s in my left back pocket,” I said.
    â€œBut I already know the answer, Pete.”
    â€œNo, you don’t,” I said, but Drew didn’t believe me. “Come on, just ask me.”
    â€œFine, what’s in your left back pocket?”
    â€œSome lint.”
    Drew looked at me.
    â€œThat’s not funny,” he said.
    â€œOh, and my left butt cheek!” I shouted, and we howled like insane wolves.
    â€œYou should write that one down in your notebook,” he said.
    I took it out and patted the cover a couple of times. “No, I can’t. This is a special notebook.”
    â€œWhat’s it for?”
    â€œMy secret inventions,” I said, and Drew’s eyes widened.
    â€œDoes this have to do with killing my cat?” he whispered.
    I nodded really seriously.
    â€œI thought so,” Drew said, looking behind him at the big bay window. “My mom might be listening. Let’s continue this conversation in privacy, up at Corbett Canyon.”
    That’s one other thing Drew and I have in common: We’re both incredibly suspicious of other people, usually for no good reason.

Chapter Four
    C ORBETT C ANYON IS WHAT WE CALL the tree house in the back of Drew’s house. It’s the name that was on one of the bottles of wine my parents received at their holiday party last winter, and I just liked the classy sound of it. The tree house isn’t a traditional tree house, but an old storage shed that used to be in Drew’s backyard. When his parents got divorced, his dad, before moving out, got a couple of his air-force buddies to help him hoist the storage shed up into a tree because he’d always promised to build his son a tree house. It worked out well that he never got around to it, because I doubt any tree house he made would have been as nice as the storage shed; it’s got a roof with shingles and everything. We keep two beach chairs in it and a metal safe that we store important stuff in. The only bad part about it is that before it became a tree house, it was where Mr. Newmark stored his lawn mower, so