Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware Read Online Free Page A

raised it. “I’m going to call my mom,” Katie said. “I’m going to ask her to turn around and pick me up.” She took out her cell phone. “You don’t have to come with me,” she said. “You should stay and see Jasper.”
    Lily nodded. This was an important match,and Jasper would be hurt if none of his friends were watching him from the stands.
    Katie dialed her mom.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, baby?”
    At the sound of her mother’s voice, Katie broke down and couldn’t answer.
    â€œYou sound upset.”
    Katie wiped her face. She said, “It doesn’t matter. At all. Could you come pick me up?”
    â€œIs the game over?”
    Katie said miserably, “No.”
    Her mother listened to the silence for a second. Then she asked gently, “It’s that boy Choate, isn’t it, from the Stare-Eyes team?”
    Katie said it was. “Yeah, Mom. I hate him.”
    â€œOh, honey,” said Mrs. Mulligan, crooning. “Oh, baby.” She sighed deeply, lovingly, across the miles. “How many times have I warned you, Kates, not to fall in love with anyone named like a prep school? I’m telling you, honey. The Choates, the Thayers, the Thatchers, the Ashtons—they’ll all just break your heart.”
    Katie coughed and sniffled. “I know,” she gurgled.
    â€œOh, honey baby,” crooned Mrs. Mulligan, “little girl… I’m turning around. I’m turning around right now. How about I take you to the mall over in Decentville? Just you and me. A girls’ day out with the two of us. We’ll drive over to the mall, walk around, buy some things, and watch the terrifying emergence in the candle store of a giant ironclad worm released by seismic activity from its million years of dreamless sleep.”
    â€œMom,” said Katie, “I’m really not in the mood for a Horror Hollow encounter. I just want to go home.”
    â€œCome on, darling. People have being saying that down near the old Peterson place there’s a scarecrow that walks in moonlight with a scythe, seeking a harvest of blood.”
    â€œNo, Mom,” said Katie. “I know you’re trying to help, but no.”
    So Mrs. Mulligan headed back to the school, and Katie told Lily to enjoy the match and went out to the curb to wait for a ride home.
    And it is a good thing that she left the gym, a good thing that she stood outside in the chilly autumn air—because if Katie hadn’t been out there on the curb waiting for her mother, she never would have seen what she saw, and the evil that had come to Pelt might well have—
    But I’m sure you’re not interested in that.

5
    You’re interested in the big match.
    Ah, the sports novel. There is nothing I love so much as a good sports novel. Never mind that my own memory of sports is limited to rope burn and dodgeball bruises. Never mind that the height of my own athletic “participation” in middle school was having my shorts pulled down in front of the girls while being forced to leap around and sing 1983’s hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”
    I guess, at this point, I should give you some statistics. Isn’t that how it goes in sports novels? You know, I tell you that some make-believe “Ricky” ran a 4.8-minute mile or that some imaginary junior quarterback named Chuckor Vat or Del Rosco completed 61.4 percent of his passes with five touchdowns and only two interceptions, and suddenly, like magic, you’re all whipped up in the thrill of the game—you can almost
taste
the orange slices, the sweat, the blood, and the refreshing tang of Lime-Chili Blast Glacier-Ade.
    So here we go. The “stats” for the Pelt Varsity Stare-Eyes team were as follows:

    Wow. I have absolutely no idea what those numbers mean, but I feel like I just ran a morning of wind sprints.
    Coach Meyers, the town eye doctor, posted these stats on the