Going, Going, Gone! With the Pain and the Great One Read Online Free Page B

prove what a good compromiser I am?” I asked Dad.
    “I’m sure you’ll have the chance to prove how well you can compromise very soon.” Dad checked his watch. “Go and get ready. We’ll have lunch at the food court.”
    “Yay, the food court!” the Pain shouted. “I want pizza!”
    “I want burritos!” I shouted louder.
    “Pizza!”
    “Burritos!”
    “Children,” Dad said. “It’s time for another compromise.”
    “So soon?” I asked.
    “I told you you’d get the chance to prove how well you can compromise,” Dad said to me.
    But before I could say anything, the Pain sang, “Okay, I’ll have burritos.”
    “Yay … burritos!” I sang.
    “Not so fast, Abigail,” Dad said. “You got to choose the movie. Jake gets to choose which kind of food to have.”
    “But Dad … he only eats white food. Doesn’t that make it unfair?”
    “There’s no restaurant in the food court that serves only white food,” Dad reminded me. “So I don’t think you have to worry about that.”
    The Pain was smiling that sly smile of his.
    “Okay,” I said. “Pizza.”
    The Pain shouted, “Yay … pizza!”
    The mall was crowded. Holiday music wasplaying and there were decorations everywhere. A big cardboard Santa held a sign pointing to Santa’s Workshop. That reminded me of something. So I started telling Dad this story about when I was little and Aunt Diana took me to Macy’s to see Santa and I cried because when I sat on Santa’s lap he kept
ho-ho-ho-ing
in my face and he had the most disgusting breath ever.
    Dad said, “Was Jake there too?”
    “Jake isn’t in this story,” I said.
    “Who wants to be in your boring old story?” the Pain mumbled.
    My story got longer and longer because one thing led to another and Dad finally said, “How does this story end, Abigail?”
    And I said, “It ends … it ends when … um …” And then I looked over at the Pain but he wasn’t there. I turned and checked behind me. He wasn’t there either. I looked all around. But he wasn’t anywhere. So I tugged Dad’s arm and said, “Where’s the Pain?”
    “I thought you said Jake isn’t in this story.”
    “Dad—I mean he’s gone. One minute he was next to me and then
kapooie
—just like that, he wasn’t.”
    Dad looked in every direction. Then he ran up and down the mall, calling “Jake … Jake … where are you?”

    I tried to catch up with him. “Dad … wait!”
    By then Dad had found a security guard. “My son!” Dad said. He sounded out of breath. “My son is missing!”
    The security guard went into action, pressing numbers on his walkie-talkie. “Don’t worry, sir,” he said to Dad. “We deal with this all the time.”
    “His name is Jake,” Dad told the security guard. “He’s six years old.”
    “He’ll be seven in April,” I added.
    “He’s missing his top two front teeth,” Dad said. “He has brown hair and brown eyes, and he’s wearing a … a …”
    I finished for him. “A gray sweatshirt with a big kangaroo on the front. Aunt Diana brought it back from Australia, and …”
    Before I could finish telling about the Pain’s clothes we were at the security station. Mom’s told us a million times, if we ever get separated at the mall, we should tell a security guard. She says he’ll take us to thesecurity station and that’s where she’ll come to find us. Maybe the Pain forgot our plan, because he wasn’t there. And no one had heard anything about a boy who was lost.
    Suddenly, I heard a man’s voice over the loudspeaker. “Attention, shoppers! We have a missing six-year-old boy last seen near Toy City. If you see him, notify security immediately.” Then he described the Pain. After that he said, “Stay where you are, Jake. We’re going to find you.”
    “Try to stay calm, sir,” another security guard said to Dad.
    I wanted to tell him my dad is always calm. I wanted to say there’s no one in the whole world who’s more calm than my dad! But I didn’t.