The Rookie Bookie by L. Jon Wertheim & Tobias Moskowitz

Author:L. Jon Wertheim & Tobias Moskowitz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction / Sports & Recreation / Football, Juvenile Fiction / Concepts / Money, Juvenile Fiction / Business, Careers, Occupations, Juvenile Fiction / School & Education, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / Friendship
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2014-10-06T16:00:00+00:00

From there, my day somehow got worse. Of course it did. It’s like a rule of middle school. If something goes wrong in the morning, you can bet that something else will go wrong in the afternoon. Every now and then, you get a day when you should have stayed in bed. And this was one of those days.

I walked into fifth-period science class, where Mrs. Wolff always collects the homework right after the bell rings. I reached into my folder to pull out a worksheet she’d assigned about continental drift. I always keep my homework in the pocket on the left side. But when I looked, it was empty. Hmmm. That’s strange.

I opened my science textbook, thinking maybe I had folded the worksheet in half and left it in the book. But when I fanned out the pages, nothing fell out. Maybe it was in my locker. But I couldn’t go back to check without a hall pass. And Mrs. Wolff wasn’t going to give me one of those—at least not until after the homework was collected.

I got that awful panicky feeling. You know, when your mouth goes dry, like all the saliva has been drained. When your stomach feels like it’s doing a gymnastics routine. And then your palms get all the moisture that’s missing from your mouth.

As I started flipping through my science folder one last, desperate time, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and it was Clint Grayson, flashing a smile that revealed teeth the color of creamed corn. When his lips turned up, I could see the beginning of the mustache he was growing.

“Looking for this?” he said in his goofy voice, holding up my homework.

“Give it to me!” I said, feeling the anger start to flare up.

“I would,” he said, “except for one little thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t really want to,” he snarled.

“Give. Me. My. Homework,” I said again. Panic was totally giving way to rage.

“Do you want to try and make me?” he asked.

This felt like a dance I hadn’t done in a while. The Bully Dance. And the step-by-step choreography was coming back to me.

You know what I hate the most about bullies? It’s not just that they humiliate you. It’s that they turn everyone else against you, too. As Clint teased me, I looked back and saw that Mark Sterner was laughing, along with a lot of other kids. Rudy Matthews was grinning and Rachel Miller was snickering with a hand over her mouth.

I didn’t even care about the homework. This is going to sound arrogant, and probably annoying, too, but I knew I was going to get a good final grade in science, even if I got a zero on this particular assignment.

I cared more that Clint was embarrassing me in front of other kids. Mark and Rudy and Rachel? All of them were part of the betting pool. Mark was in my fantasy football league. Rudy and I had played H-O-R-S-E during recess just last week.

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