Go Big or Go Home by Will Hobbs

Author:Will Hobbs [Hobbs, Will]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ages 8 & Up
ISBN: 9780061963667
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2008-10-11T07:00:00+00:00

16

Extreme Is the Word

OUR RIDE BACK TO Hill City was clouded with gloom. Gloom and disaster and defeat. Thanks to my utter and clueless stupidity, Fred was now on the bottom of the lake. I’d had him only sixty-some hours, not even long enough to look into how much he was worth, and I’d already lost him.

“Quite valuable,” I kept hearing the professor say.

“He’s safe in my backpack,” I heard myself assuring Quinn.

Back at the boat ramp, the Carvers had offered to throw our bikes in the back of their daddy’s pickup and drop us at home. This was totally rubbing it in. “No, thanks,” I muttered, and we got on our bikes. Out on the highway Cal honked as their pickup roared by towing the Corpse Hunter. Max leaned out the window and gave us a gleeful wave.

The Carver boys were soon out of sight. Unfortunately they weren’t out of mind. I knew exactly what it was like inside the cab of that truck. We’d given them so much to hoot at and laugh about, it was pathetic.

Quinn had a black cloud over his head, too. I could feel it from my vantage point as I pedaled behind his rear wheel. “I’m leading,” he had announced as were leaving Pactola. “Let’s get out of here.”

Quinn had had it. He was disgusted, and I didn’t blame him one bit.

As we pulled into Hill City, neither of us even glanced over at Grabba Java. It felt like we were riding in a dark tunnel. I was surprised when Quinn slowed down and stopped in front of the museum.

I looked at my watch. Four o’clock. We were right on time for our appointment with the professor, but what was the point of going through with it now?

Quinn put his bike in the bike rack and I did the same. He couldn’t even look me in the eye. “You know they’re going to drag the lake,” he muttered.

“I’m afraid so. What are the chances of them hooking my backpack?”

“P.D.G.”

P.D.G. was our shorthand for “pretty darn good.” This was the last thing I wanted to hear, but Quinn was right. “Probably we won’t even find out if they recover him,” I said.

“You got that right. They’ll slice him and dice him and sell him in tiny pieces on eBay, and you’ll never even know. Let’s go see the professor, Brady.”

“Do we have to?”

“Of course we have to. You have to tell him you lost Fred. Might as well get it over with. Don’t you want to find out what he’s learned? What happened to your curiosity?”

“Okay, but don’t lay it on so thick, Quinn. I feel like a gob of slime as it is.”

A minute later our English scientist was ushering us into his office. “Mighty serious this afternoon, are we, lads? I’m happy to see it—this is serious stuff.”

Quinn and I settled onto the couch as the tall professor landed in the rolling chair in front of his computer. I was just about

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