Insert Coin to Continue by John David Anderson

Author:John David Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin

12:37 p.m.

The End of the World

When they parted in the hall, Myra gave Bryan a hug, then went to hug Oz, but their trajectories crossed and he ended up nearly punching her in the face. “I’ll see you both in band,” Myra offered, the only class all three had together. The last period of the day.

Right before I’m destroyed, Bryan thought. Provided I even make it that long.

“I’m sorry,” Oz said as they walked to fifth period. He smiled at Bryan, fishing for a smile in return, but he wasn’t going to get it. Bryan knew he couldn’t stay mad at Oz forever, but he figured a few years was easily justified.

“I just don’t see why you have to go around telling everybody everything.” Not that anything ever stayed a secret for long there anyway. Middle school was pretty much the exact opposite of the CIA when it came to confidential information.

“I don’t tell everybody everything. I never told anyone about that time you stuck your foot in the toilet in the boys’ bathroom trying to hide from Carl Vanderschlot,” Oz offered in his defense.

“That was you, dinglebutt.”

“Oh . . . yeah,” Oz mused. “Well. I never told anyone how you once ate so much spaghetti at Maglioni’s that you vomited down the back of the man at the table behind you.”

“You again.” Bryan sighed.

“Oh . . . right. Well, don’t worry about it. Because I’m here now. I will protect you.”

Bryan looked at Oz’s nose, already starting to turn purple from their battle in the gym, like an eggplant ripening between his eyes. “Why would I worry?” he said.

The bell rang as they ducked into social studies. Mr. Jenkins, the social studies teacher, got up from his desk and closed the door behind them. He was wearing one of his custom-made jerseys again. Mr. Jenkins operated under the delusion that historical figures should be just as popular as professional athletes, so he custom-printed baseball jerseys with the names of famous people in history—presidents, generals, dictators—and wore them to class over his button-downs. Today he was Winston Churchill, who was, apparently, number seventy-four and played for the Dodgers.

“ ‘Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm,’ ” Mr. Jenkins said, pointing to the same quote on the board. “Can anyone guess who said that?”

Everybody knew. The name was written on the man’s shirt. Still, nobody guessed, refusing to give Jenkins the satisfaction. It was the same routine every day.

“Winston Churchill, prime minister of Great Britain during World War Two and one of the finest leaders of the twentieth century,” the social studies teacher answered for them.

What followed was a seven-minute lecture on how fantastic Winston Churchill was, how he ushered his country through the most turbulent time in its history, and how he could have beaten the snot out of LeBron James in a one-on-one brawl. No one bothered to argue. No one ever bothered arguing. Bryan tried to picture Sir Winston and King James duking it out, but the image kept reverting back to scenes of Tank Wattly smashing Bryan’s face into the ground.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.