The Revealers Read Free Page B

this stuff happened to him because it always had—and because it had to happen to somebody, especially in seventh grade. And he is kind of funny looking. He looks like a little bird with a big bobbing head, scooting across the playground before he’s spotted. People called him Bird Boy, sometimes. When he went by in the hall, certain guys would make “cheep cheep” noises.
    They did other stuff, too, especially once our class started really getting into the Darkland spirit. Sometimes they played Surround and Pound. They’d trap Elliot on the playground (yes, we still had recess and we were still sent to the playground, in seventh grade), and they’d start closing the circle and shoving him back and forth. He’d try to shoot out between kids, and if they could grab him they’d throw him back. When they closed the circle all the way, they’d shove him like a rag doll between them. Once at recess when Elliot was on the monkey bar by himself, these two guys, Burke Brown and Jon Blanchette, snuck up below and pantsed him. They were the ones who hung him on the cleat, too, actually.
    Elliot himself was obsessed with dinosaurs. Had been for years. He was always lugging around big dinosaur encyclopedias, and he had dinosaur stickers on his notebooks—even then, in seventh grade; and when he had any kind of school project he’d relate it to dinosaurs if he could. (You can even
do this in math, if you’re Elliot. Once when we had to do something on probability, he did “Estimating the Life Span of Triceratops.” He said that was probably the last dinosaur to die out, so they know more about it.)
    For all I knew, dinosaurs were the only thing Elliot ever thought about. And I could understand this. I mean, if you’re Elliot Gekewicz, spending your days lost in your mind among giant prehistoric reptiles probably has a lot more appeal than being awake to the realities of Darkland Middle School.
    So anyway, I called him. I had to take a deep breath first, because this was really depressing, in a way. But I told myself I wasn’t going to be friends with Elliot, I only wanted to ask him a few things. It was like being a detective. I had a mystery, and I was looking for clues.
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    One of his sisters answered the phone. When I asked for Elliot, there was a long silence. I heard whispering.
    Finally she said, “Who is this, please?”
    â€œIt’s Russell Trainor.”
    â€œOh. O … kay …”
    I heard more whispering. The phone was set down … then it was picked up and Elliot said, “Hello?”
    â€œHi,” I said. “It’s Russell.”
    â€œOh. Hello.”
    â€œI had to like pass a security check to get to you.”
    â€œOh. Well … I guess I’ve been getting some not very nice calls.”
    â€œHuh. Ah, listen, Elliot. Could I ask you about something? I’m kind of looking for an expert.”
    â€œAn expert?”
    â€œWell, yeah.”
    â€œMe?”
    â€œOh, definitely.”

    â€œHey, sure!” he said. “When’d you get interested in dinos?”
    â€œIt’s not dinosaurs, Elliot. It is kind of about predators, though. I’m suddenly sort of the target of one. If you know what I mean.”
    â€œA predator?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œOh.”
    There was a long pause. Finally Elliot said, “Could we do this Streaming?”
    â€œUh, well, okay. I guess so. Why?”
    â€œIt’s more secure.”
    â€œOkay, I’ll get on-line. What’s your address?”
    â€œTroo.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œT-R-O-O. For troodon,” he said. “It’s small but sharp-eyed, with an unusually big brain area. And slashing claws.”
    â€œOh. O … kay.”
    I hung up the phone and turned on the computer.
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    Our school has a LAN, a local area computer network. Officially it’s called SchoolStream, but everyone—every kid, at