Barefoot Pirate Read Online Free Page B

magic world
would be beautiful, like Narnia, or something. What if it turned out to be a
hideous desert world, with boiling temperatures and tornados and things? Who
cares, he thought. I’ve wanted adventure since I was little. I’m so outa here. Like
anyone would even notice.
    Except Benny, of course. Joe sighed, feeling a twinge of
guilt—and a lot of annoyance. He shrugged the feelings away. His mother would
just have to pay attention to her own kid for once. Maybe at the same time
she’d see what a mega-monster Mar Tee was turning into, and do everyone a favor
by stepping on her for once.
    The one thing that worried him was making contact with that
Nan. What if she somehow cheated him out of going?
    Joe yanked the piece of notebook paper out of his pocket
onto which he’d copied the entire last page of the book. It didn’t say that a
person had to have the book on hand—or that more than one couldn’t go. It
didn’t even say where the person had to be, except (he guessed) you had to be
somewhere in sight of the full moon.
    Tonight, he thought, and once again that crazy feeling of
joy burned inside him. After he’d finished the book two nights ago, he’d
sneaked out to the yard to check the moon. It had been nearly full.
    A couple of kids approached from the other end of the block,
and he pocketed the paper again. Well, whatever. He’d try to work with Nan, and
if she wasn’t having any, he’d be outa there the first sight of the moon
tonight. And if only one could go—then, well, at least he’d tried to share.
    When he got to school he saw her lurking around the library
building, and he fought against disgust. Geez, she was weird. Not that she
looked all that weird. A plain, skinny girl with two thick, orange braids, and
kind of nerdy clothes, like from some super-cheap discount store. It was the
way she kind of lurked around the edges of walls and things, staring out of the
sides of her eyes, then if you met her gaze, she looked down at the toes of her
crummy shoes. Gave him the creeps.
    Does she expect me to act like some kind of spy, he thought
in disgust, and he walked straight across the quad toward her.
    She darted quick glances from side to side, as though
somebody was about to jump her. He was going to make a sarcastic comment about
commando raids when he recalled McKynzi Kerne and her gang ragging her, calling
her Nanny Goat and such stuff. Maybe she was on the lookout for them. So he only
said, “Hi. Read the book?”
    She nodded, her blue eyes puffy and her mouth tight. He knew
he had puffy eyes as well, from not being able to sleep. She didn’t seem about
to say anything, so he said, “Want to go?”
    Her mouth thinned and her eyes closed a second, then once
again she nodded. Short and tight.
    Maybe this nerdy kid wanted to go as badly as he did.
    Some kids yelled with laughter not far away, and Nan
flinched, then gave him this weird, worried look, like she didn’t want to be
seen talking to him. So he stared up at a bulletin board about Presidents’ Day,
and said quickly, “Look. How about if we meet here at school, at midnight. It’s
full moon tonight—and it should be good and up by then. Can you do it?”
    “I’ll be here,” she said in a flat voice. “Midnight.”
    And she hurried away like an army of orcs was after her. Joe
wondered if going anywhere with this girl was going to be a big mistake.
    o0o
    At first Nan was afraid she was going to cry when—after all
her worries all night long—Joseph Robles offered to meet her and do the spell
together, as if nothing else in the world had been in his mind.
    The magic must be working already, she thought. Making him
act decent. Yeah. That has to be it; kids in her experience never acted
friendly, or nice. Wherever she went, it was like she came with an invisible
sign on her forehead saying Pick on me!
    So all she had to worry about now was getting away from the
Evanses safely.
    Through every class Nan tried to think about