03 - Monster Blood Read Online Free

what the
heck, he thought. She wouldn’t care.
    Besides, what could possibly happen?

 
 
6
     
     
    “Okay,” Evan said. “Let’s check out the town.”
    “I have to go to a toy store and look for a present for my cousin,” Andy
said, hoisting her bike up by the handlebars.
    “How old are you?” Evan asked, tugging Trigger toward the street.
    “Twelve.”
    “Me, too,” he said. “Can I try your bike?”
    She shook her head as she climbed onto the narrow seat. “No, but I’ll let you
run alongside.” She laughed.
    “You’re a riot,” he said sarcastically, hurrying to keep up as she began to
pedal.
    “And you’re stupid,” she called back playfully.
    “Hey, Annnndreeeea— wait up!” he called, stretching the name out to
annoy her.
    A few blocks later, the houses ended and they entered town, a three-block
stretch of low two-story shops and offices. Evan saw a small brick post office,
a barbershop with an old-fashioned barber pole out front, a grocery, a drive-through bank, and a hardware store
with a large sign in the window proclaiming a sale on birdseed.
    “The toy store is in the next block,” Andy said, walking her bike along the
sidewalk. Evan tugged Trigger’s leash, encouraging him to keep up the pace.
“Actually there are two toy stores, an old one and a new one. I like the old one
best.”
    “Let’s check it out,” Evan said, examining the cluttered window display of
the video store on the corner.
    I wonder if Aunt Kathryn has a VCR, he thought. He quickly dismissed the
idea. No way….
    The toy store was in an old clapboard building that hadn’t been painted in
many years. A small, hand-painted sign in the dust-smeared window proclaimed:
Wagner’s Novelties & Sundries. There were no toys on display.
    Andy leaned her bike against the front of the building. “Sometimes the owner
can be a little mean. I don’t know if he’ll let you bring your dog in.”
    “Well, let’s give it a try,” Evan said, pulling open the door. Tugging hard
on his leash, Trigger led the way into the store.
    Evan found himself in a dark, low-ceilinged, narrow room. It took awhile for
his eyes to adjust to the dim light.
    Wagner’s looked more like a warehouse than a store. There were floor-to-ceiling shelves against both walls, jammed with
boxes of toys, and a long display counter that ran through the center of the
store, leaving narrow aisles that even someone as skinny as Evan had to squeeze
through.
    At the front of the store, slumped on a tall stool behind an old-fashioned
wooden cash register, sat a grumpy-looking man with a single tuft of white hair
in the center of a red, bald head. He had a drooping white mustache that seemed
to frown at Evan and Andy as they entered.
    “Hi,” Andy said timidly, giving the man a wave.
    He grunted in reply and turned back to the newspaper he was reading.
    Trigger sniffed the low shelves excitedly. Evan looked around at the stacks
of toys. It appeared from the thick layer of dust that they’d been sitting there
for a hundred years. Everything seemed tossed together, dolls next to building
sets, art supplies mixed in with old action figures Evan didn’t even recognize,
a toy drum set underneath a pile of footballs.
    He and Andy were the only customers in the store.
    “Do they have Nintendo games?” Evan asked her, whispering, afraid to break
the still silence.
    “I don’t think so,” Andy whispered back. “I’ll ask.” She shouted up to the
front, “Do you have Nintendo games?”
    It took awhile for the man to answer. He scratched his ear. “Don’t carry them,” he grunted finally, sounding annoyed
by the interruption.
    Andy and Evan wandered toward the back of the store. “Why do you like this
place?” Evan whispered, picking up an old cap pistol with a cowboy holster.
    “I just think it’s neat,” Andy replied. “You can find some real treasures
here. It’s not like other toy stores.”
    “That’s for sure,” Evan said