B.u.g. Big Ugly Guy (9781101593523) by Yolen Jane; Stemple Adam

Author:Yolen, Jane; Stemple, Adam
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA
Published: 2013-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

They made a strange procession out to the car: Sammy’s father, small but powerful, taking the lead with a steady march; then slight Sammy, not watching where he was going and almost tumbling onto the walk because he kept craning his neck around to look at the golem; and at the last Gully, whose long strides threatening to carry him past the other two.

His mother had insisted. “A new boy and a boy just back from having a fever? Of course Dad will drive you.” She didn’t mention the bullies, but Sammy suspected she was thinking about that, too, and he didn’t protest.

Sliding into the backseat, he motioned Gully to sit next to him. The golem looked the car up and down and side to side before ducking his head low to slide in.

“Seat belts!” Sammy’s father called.

Sammy leaned over and grabbed Gully’s seat belt, stretching it nearly to its limit to get it around Gully’s big frame, before clicking it into place.

“Seat belts?” Gully asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Seat belts to keep you safe,” Sammy said, wondering at the same time when he’d given the golem eyebrows. He couldn’t remember doing it. Then he leaned back and grabbed his own seat belt. But before he could stretch it across his chest, Gully snatched it from his grasp, and with a motion that looked practiced—but obviously couldn’t have been—whipped it around Sammy and clicked it into place.

“Seat belts,” Gully said, with a satisfied nod. “To keep you safe.”

Sammy smiled at him and Gully smiled right back.

I wish I’d glazed those teeth white, Sammy thought. But of course he’d never glazed anything without his father’s help. And even if his dad hadn’t noticed the enormous amounts of missing clay, he’d have surely figure out the kiln had been used at night—by the residual heat if nothing else.

Residual, he thought. A good word. For a difficult moment. Trying to cover for a made-up creature who was created out of residual ideas and leftover clay. All gray.

However, he didn’t have to look at the offending teeth for long. As soon as Sammy’s father got the car rolling down the driveway, Gully’s smile disappeared into a tight-lipped frown and his eyes bugged wide. His whole body went tense, his arms bulging with ropy muscles and his grayish knuckles turning white where his hands grabbed the edge of the car seat.

But he only stayed that way for the briefest of moments. With a snort like an angry bear, he released the seat belt, leaned forward, his hands curling into alarmingly large fists. Then he sneered at the back of Sammy’s father’s head, pulled his right fist back, and—

“No!” Sammy screamed, and flung himself across the backseat at the golem.

“What? Did you forget something for school?” Sammy’s father glanced in the rearview mirror. “And why are you hanging off your friend’s arm?”

The golem was looking down at Sammy as if he wanted to know the answer to that last question, too.

“Um . . .” Sammy began uncertainly. “Gully here is a nervous rider.

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