Dinosaur Boy Read Online Free

basketball, he hadn’t left his house without looking like a temple to the sport that had finally made school bearable for him. And it looked like things were going to be no different this year. Today, he was wearing the Portland Trail Blazers jersey I had gotten him for his birthday and black high-top basketball shoes. He was even carrying a basketball. Probably for extra insurance, just in case summer break had caused some of the kids to forget that he was, in fact, a basketball player, as opposed to just “that tall freak.”
    I had been the only person who had stuck by Elliot while everyone else was calling him “Jolly Green Giant” and asking him how the weather was up there. We had been friends since kindergarten, and I had always figured that he would have done the same for me.
    I guess I was about to find out if that was true.
    â€œDo you think you’ll ever get used to your plates and stuff?” he asked me, and reached over to touch my topmost one. But he pulled his hand back at the last second. He looked a tad embarrassed, and I could practically hear Dr. Dana’s cheerful assurances that I was “not contagious” playing through his head.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said vaguely, and turned back toward the computer lab, like I hadn’t noticed anything. Elliot fell in beside me, dribbling his basketball from hand to hand as we walked. When we were little, people had sometimes asked if Elliot and I were twins. Probably because we had the same dirty blond hair and hazel eyes. Plus, we both had a ton of freckles. But that had been before Elliot’s five inches and my dinosaur parts.
    I doubted that anyone would mistake us for twins now.
    â€œDo they hurt?” Elliot asked.
    â€œNot anymore,” I said, looking at the floor. Looking up at Elliot had been a pain since his growth spurt. Now, with my plates, it was nearly impossible.
    â€œWell, that’s good. I guess,” he said uncomfortably. “And it’s definitely…you know…permanent?”
    â€œLooks like it.”
    â€œHmmmm,” he said, opening the computer lab door. “Bummer.”
    Mr. Broome, our computer teacher, yawned at the sight of us. Mr. Broome suffered from crippling allergies, so he was always either sneezing like crazy or about to fall asleep because of his medication. Not long after we had all filed into the room, he muttered something about us having “free lab time,” put his head down on the desk, and drifted off.
    I turned to ask Elliot what he wanted to do. But he just gestured sadly to the empty chairs on either side of us.
    The rest of the class had decided to give us a three-computer buffer, on both sides.
    I just shrugged, as though it didn’t matter. Elliot shrugged back, as though he didn’t care either.
    There were a bunch of kids gathered around a computer in the row ahead of us. Allan Huxley stood right in the middle of the group.
    Like Elliot, Allan had been in my class since kindergarten. But unlike Elliot, Allan and I had never been friends. A certain alleged pants-wetting incident back in first grade had made that pretty much impossible.
    Not that I would have wanted to be Allan’s friend anyway. Allan had been the leader of the group that had tormented Elliot last year.
    He seemed excited about something just then, which worried me. His head, which was so big that it made the rest of his body look small, whipped around to stare at me.
    I looked away, as alarm bells started going off in my brain.
    â€œNo, that’s not it,” he said, turning back to the computer screen. “He doesn’t have a neck thingy.”
    In direct defiance of the many NO FOOD OR DRINKS signs that were posted around the lab, he stuffed a wad of beef jerky into his mouth and started chewing it. Noisily.
    At least, I thought it was beef jerky. Allan’s dad was a big hunter and made his own deer jerky, so it might have been that. Ugh.