Hellhole Read Online Free Page A

profound (“You know why he needs to make friends on the Internet? Because in person, women keep laughing at him when they see the size of his—” “Mom, stop.”); vindictive (“She’s faking that cold. No one looks that cute when they’re gushing mucus.”); and cruel (“‘Daisies are the friendliest flower’? Who
talks
like that, other than people with brain damage?”). Max joined in on the barbs, even though he sometimes secretly liked those kinds of movies. They always had happy endings, a precious commodity that was not guaranteed in real life.
    Plus, Tom Hanks gave him hope. The man’s head looked like a loaded baked potato, yet he always got the girl in the end.
    When at last “The End” was typed out on the screen and a cursor hovered over it and clicked it away (“Lame.”), Max rubbed his eyes and stood up. His mom leaned back into her pillows with a contented sigh.
    â€œThanks, hon,” she said, squeezing his hand. “You did good.”
    â€œI try.” He picked up the pizza box and his backpack, then leaned over to kiss her on the forehead. “Night, Mom. Love you.”
    â€œLove you too, babe,” she said, her eyes already fluttering. “Thanks again for the mutant cat.”
    Max snickered and closed the door behind him. He thought for a moment about heading into the basement to log some hours on the Xbox in the hopes that he might one day beat Audie at
Madden
, but the tendrils of a headache were beginning to spread through his skull, worming into the spaces behind his eyes. He told himself this was due to the stress of stealing the cat. Definitely not from the effort of holding in tears at the end of the movie.
    Look, he couldn’t help it. Tom and Meg were just too charming.
    When he got to his bedroom, he dropped his backpack to the floor, the overdue bills along with it. He’d deal with them tomorrow. Or, rather, he’d check the family bank account balance, confirm that there wasn’t enough money in it to pay said bills, and throw them into the garbage bin tomorrow.
    He fell into bed but couldn’t sleep. He stared out his window at the perfect view of Ugly Hill that it provided, but its blahness only depressed him more. The familiar refrain of
what am I gonna do, what am I gonna do
ran through his head like a stampede of collection agency wildebeests. One concern led to another, a chain reaction with no end in sight.
    Well, there was one end—but he didn’t want to think about that.
    He tossed and turned, yet sleep refused to come. He watched the clock on his nightstand flip over, one minute at a time—2:59, 3:00, 3:01—until finally, unable to endure another minute of worry, he got dressed and grabbed his shovel.

Excavate
    MAX WAS OUTSIDE IN LESS THAN A MINUTE, wearing his crummiest pair of jeans and a jacket that was far too thin for how chilly it had gotten. Not that there was any danger of getting lost and dying of exposure out there; he knew the overgrown hiking trails of Ugly Hill by heart. Everyone in E’ville did, as it was the only halfway decent place to make out. Or do more than make out.
    Or, in Max’s case, dig holes.
    Aside from being notably hideous, Ugly Hill had one additional claim to fame: about ten years prior, a paleontology team from Harvard University had discovered a rare fossil beneath its ugly dirt. It was so rare they hadn’t been able to identify it, and as far as Max knew—since he had periodically emailed Dr. Cavendish, the professor and expedition leader, about it—they were still stumped a decade later.
    The discovery garnered a lot of attention when it happened—Eastville even made the national news for a day or two. But once the excitement died away, any and all scientific interest went with it. The original discoverers had been a team of bored undergrads who thought Paleontology 101 would be an easy A and had already