Working for Bigfoot Read Free Page A

book. “That’s stupid. You can’t hitchhike onto a spaceship.”
    “No, sir,” Irwin said.
    “Detention,” Coach Pete said. “Report to me after school.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Coach Pete slapped the paperback against his leg, scowled at Irwin—and then abruptly looked up at me. “What?” he demanded.
    “I was just wondering. You don’t, by any chance, have a Vogon in your family tree?”
    Coach Pete eyed me, his chest swelling in what an anthropologist might call a threat display. It might have been impressive if I hadn’t been talking to River Shoulders the night before. “That a joke?”
    “That depends on how much poetry you write,” I said.
    At this Coach Pete looked confused. He clearly didn’t like feeling that way, which seemed a shame, since I suspected he spent a lot of time doing it. Irwin’s eyes widened and he darted a quick look at me. His mouth twitched, but the kid kept himself from smiling or laughing—which was fairly impressive in a boy his age.
    Coach Pete glowered at me, pointed a finger as if it might have been a gun, and said, “You tend to your own business.”
    I held up both hands in a gesture of mild acceptance. I rolled my eyes as soon as Coach Pete turned his back, drawing another quiver of restraint from Irwin.
    “Pick this up,” Coach Pete said to Irwin, and gestured at the spilled lunch on the floor. Then he turned and stomped away, taking Irwin’s paperback with him. The two kids who had been giving Irwin grief had made their way back to their original seats, meanwhile, and were at the far end of the table, looking smug.
    I pushed my lunch away and got up from the table. I went over to Irwin’s side and knelt down to help him clean up his mess. I picked up the tray, slid it to a point between us, and said, “Just stack it up here.”
    Irwin gave me a quick, shy glance from beneath his mussed hair, and started plucking up fallen bits of lunch. His hands were almost comically large compared to the rest of him, but his fingers were quick and dexterous. After a few seconds he asked, “You’ve read the Hitchhiker’s Guide ?”
    “Forty-two times,” I said.
    He smiled and then ducked his head again. “No one else here likes it.”
    “Well, it’s not for everyone, is it?” I asked. “Personally, I’ve always wondered if Adams might not be a front man for a particularly talented dolphin. Which I think would make the book loads funnier.”
    Irwin let out a quick bark of laughter and then hunched his shoulders and kept cleaning up. His shoulders shook.
    “Those two boys give you trouble a lot?” I asked.
    Irwin’s hands stopped moving for a second. Then he started up again. “What do you mean?”
    “I mean I’ve been you before,” I said. “The kid who liked reading books about aliens and goblins and knights and explorers at lunch, and in class, and during recess. I didn’t care much about sports. And I got picked on a lot.”
    “They don’t pick on me,” Irwin said quickly. “It’s just…just what guys do. They give me a hard time. It’s in fun.”
    “And it doesn’t make you angry,” I said. “Not even a little.”
    His hands slowed down, and his face turned thoughtful. “Sometimes,” he said quietly. “When they spoil my broccoli.”
    I blinked. “Broccoli?”
    “I love broccoli,” Irwin said, looking up at me, his expression serious.
    “Kid,” I said, smiling, “no one loves broccoli. No one even likes broccoli. All the grown-ups just agree to lie about it so that we can make kids eat it, in vengeance for what our parents did to us.”
    “Well, I love broccoli,” Irwin said, his jaw set.
    “Hunh,” I said. “Guess I’ve seen something new today.” We finished and I said, “Go get some more lunch. I’ll take care of this.”
    “Thank you,” he said soberly. “Um, Norm.”
    I grunted, nodded to him, tossed the dropped food, and returned the tray. Then I sat back down at the corner table with my lunch and watched Irwin and his