Holy Enchilada Read Online Free Page B

is always a look of confusion in his eyes when he lectures us.
    I knew I couldn’t look at Frankie or we’d start to laugh. I did glance over at Ashley. She looked like she was hypnotized, just staring at the mole on Principal Love’s cheek. Oh, I forgot to tell you about that, too. Principal Love has this mole on his face that’s shaped like the Statue of Liberty without the torch. When he talks, it looks like the Statue of Liberty is doing the hula.
    As Principal Love droned on, Ashley looked over at me and rolled her eyes back until you could only see the white parts. That’s not easy to do, but Ashley can do lots of body tricks like that. I knew I couldn’t laugh, but I couldn’t hold it in. A little snorting sound leaked out through my nose. Ms. Adolf shot me the death look. I held my nose and pushed that snort all the way back into my brain.
    During art period, a bunch of us volunteered to go to Mr. Rock’s room in the basement to make a welcome sign for Yoshi. His room is the biggest one in our school, so we had plenty of room to spread out and make a really big sign. Mr. Rock is the music teacher at PS 87 and a really cool guy. In fact, he’s the one who first suggested that I be tested for learning differences. He has learning differences, too, but he always points out that they didn’t stop him from achieving his dream of teaching.
    Mr. Rock rolled out a long sheet of brown paper while Frankie and Hector Ruiz mixed up paints. Ryan Shimozato had brought a slip of paper with the words WELCOME, YOSHI written in Japanese characters. Ryan’s dad, who was born in Japan, wrote it out for him. We were going to try to copy it onto the sign.
    Those characters looked really complicated. Ryan said there are almost two thousand of them that combine to make up the Japanese language. Boy, it’s a good thing I wasn’t born in Japan. If I had to learn to write all those characters, I never would have gotten out of kindergarten.
    â€œMr. Rock, can I decorate the sign with rhinestones?” Ashley asked. “I brought some pink ones from home. Maybe they’ll remind Yoshi of the cherry blossoms in springtime in Japan.”
    A blast of dragon breath came shooting in from the hallway door. I knew that breath. It was Nick McKelty breath—the breath of peanut butter turned bad. I spun around and, sure enough, the big jerk was slithering into Mr. Rock’s room. Who asked him to help?
    â€œRhinestones!” laughed Nick McKelty. “How girlie is that!”
    â€œAshley is expressing her creativity,” Mr. Rock said to him. “Everyone in here is free to be creative.”
    â€œHa, ha, ha,” Ashley whispered to McKelty as she whipped out a baggie of rhinestones and her glue stick. “I ought to rhinestone your mouth shut.”
    Frankie and Hector finished mixing the paints, and brought them over to the paper. Ryan and I were ready to start outlining the Japanese letters. McKelty reached over, stuck his beefy arm in front of everyone, and grabbed a paintbrush, almost knocking the jelly jars of paint over.
    â€œI’m one of the best artists on the Upper West Side,” he said, like anyone believed him. “I won an art trophy once, and it’s so big, I can hardly fit it in my room.”
    We call that the McKelty Factor: truth times one hundred. No one even pays attention when he brags like that. But since no one has ever been to his house for a play date—except Luke Whitman once—we couldn’t really catch him in the lie this time.
    â€œOh, by the way, dude, we’re painting in Japanese,” Frankie said to him. “You know how to do that, don’t you?”
    McKelty squinted down at the Japanese letters on Ryan’s paper. When he looked up, his big face was even blanker than usual. He didn’t have a clue what to do. His eyes scanned the room for someone to pick on.
    â€œHey, Zipperhead,” McKelty