Jimmy Stone's Ghost Town Read Online Free Page A

happened to become
their chosen target last year and now he has zero friends, eats
lunch at the rejects' table, and basically hides in the back of the
classroom all day. The Coogan Boys are bad news, and they have the
power to ruin your life in just a few days.
    So you can imagine how I
felt when I started to realize, in the first few days of school,
that Billy and his buddies were setting their sights on me as this
year's target. It wasn't a definite thing at first. Apparently,
Billy usually took a few days to check out the different options.
He'd have his boys bring him notes on who might be a good
candidate, take a look at the choices himself, and then decide on
who they'd terrorize for an entire school year. I guess it was a
very scientific process. All I knew is that I definitely didn't want Billy to
choose me.
    I watched, in horror, as the Coogan Boys
chased Stevie Rample around the playground, during recess, for the
first few days. Then I guess they got bored and were onto Darren
Eckles for the next few, and then it was Johnny Kevner, and then
Kurt Timpano. I saw a lot of the other kids (mostly girls) laughing
at the targets during that first week or so. Apparently, they were
amused by all these attacks. I stood, perched up in what the other
kids called the "Crow's Nest" of the playground, and I will tell
you that I didn't laugh. Not one chuckle, giggle, or snort came out
of my mouth as Coogan and his clan terrorized the other boys. Not a
single one. And you want to know why? I didn't laugh because I knew
that any day could be my day. I knew that all it took was for one
slip up and the Coogan Boys would forget all about those other kids
and head straight for me. The thing was, though, that I never
really imagined it would happen.
    That is, until the beginning of the second
week of school, when I felt an enormous spitball ricochet off my
forehead and watched it fall straight into the applesauce on my
lunch tray. I tried to remain calm and not look at anyone else in
the lunchroom, but the sound of laughter and high-fives from across
the room told me all that I needed to know. Coogan and his boys had
set their sights on me and my heart sank into my stomach as I
started to hope that it wasn't for the whole year.
     

Chapter Seven
     
     
    Once I was on Billy Coogan's radar, my days
at school turned into lessons in how to escape, evade, blend in,
and basically appear invisible. The Coogan Boys weren't about to
let up so I had to find other ways to at least make it hard for
them to attack.
    And, you want to know what
happened? My running, hiding, and being mostly invisible only
fueled Billy and his boys. Most targets just sit back and take it.
They don't even bother to try. Instead, I guess they think it's
easier to just be a sitting duck. I'm sure the Coogan Boys probably
enjoyed that tactic for the first few targets, but I'll bet they
got bored pretty quickly. It was simply too easy and, as all kids
know, bullying shouldn't be too easy or it's no fun.
    Which brings us to me. I'd been running and
hiding from my dad (at least when he was drinking his beers) for
the past three years so I had a lot of practice. I guess I'd gotten
pretty good at it because I was really starting to give the Coogan
Boys a run for their money. Unfortunately, I think all my
ducking-and-hiding only made it that much more fun for Billy and
friends. It seemed pretty obvious - even after only a few days -
that Billy had chosen me as his target for the year.
    It was a challenge for
them, and I guess all the searching made it that much more fun for
them. After putting in the hard work to track me down, the attacks
must have been even better for them. They must have been that much more
satisfying.
    So, do you have it all straight so far? The
hero of your story (yeah, that's me, Jimmy Stone), who has zero
friends in his school (much less even an acquaintance that he knows
of) just realized that he's become the target of the Coogan Boys
(the most ruthless