Lucy Doesn't Wear Pink Read Online Free

side.
    “We’re just gonna make it fun for whoever’s driving,” J.J. said. “He’s probably bored too.”
    The motor screamed, and another cloud of dust-smoke billowed above them.
    “He doesn’t sound bored.” Lucy put her hand on J.J.’s handlebar. “Come on — I’ll lie down over there and let you jump over me with your bike.”
    “Great idea,” J.J. said. But he didn’t move to where Lucy was pointing, away from the approaching growl of the ATV. “We’ll both get down at the bottom of the hill, and when he comes over the top, he’ll either have to go over the side or jump over us.”
    Lucy shook her ponytail, hard.
    “Either way, it’ll be cool. Come on,” J.J. said.
    “What if he misses?”
    “No way — he’ll totally see us.”
    Lucy didn’t like the hard thing that came into J.J.’s eyes, like a lid slamming down on something. He was going to do this, no matter what. And Lucy wasn’t.
    She could hear the ATV making its final snarling-growling-whining push to the top of Little Sierra. She jerked her wheel to the left and shoved off with her foot.
    Even as she got her other foot to the pedal, she heard the ATV scream in the air behind her. Someone yelled in a voice that rose into the air with it. When J.J.’s cry joined it, Lucy turned around. She was just in time to see the thick wheels of the ATV land and bounce and head straight for her.
    “Get down!” J.J. screamed.
    Lucy let go of her bike and dropped to the ground. Her spokes flattened her arm, pushing it down hard. Pain shot all the way up to her neck. Tiny things hit her face and stung and bit and then were gone with the machine that roared past, just inches from the top of her head.
    Dust rained on her, but Lucy didn’t care. All she could do was shake.
    J.J. said above her, “You’re okay, right?”
    “I don’t know.” Lucy tried to sit up, but her right arm was pinned under what used to be her bike wheel. Now, it looked like it belonged on the pile of junk in J.J.’s yard.
    Her clothes didn’t look much better. Rips f lapped open in both her jacket and her sweatshirt as if they were eager to show off the gash in her arm.
    “Dude, you’re bleeding,” J.J. said.
    “Of course I’m bleeding, genius. The spokes cut me. Could you get the bike off?”
    J.J. crouched beside her, hands shivering. He managed to use them to pull the twisted wheel from her arm.
    “How bad is it?” Lucy asked.
    “You got, like, a major cut.”
    “No — my bike. How bad is it?”
    J.J. got on his knees. “I can totally fix it. We probably got a hundred wheels at my house.”
    Before Lucy could tell him he probably had that many in the front yard alone, engine noise ripped the air.
    “He better come back,” J.J. said, scrambling to his feet.
    Lucy cradled her arm against the front of her jacket. “Why? So he can run over me again?”
    “Hey!” J.J. waved his arms above his head and jumped, puffing dirt into Lucy’s face.
    “Would you knock it off?” But Lucy could barely hear herself as the ATV roared toward them. She curled up and rolled away, but it stopped, and the motor noise dropped to a mumble, unlike Lucy’s heart, which slammed against the walls of her chest.
    “What was up with that?” the driver said. His “that” disappeared up into that range where only dogs can hear, the way J.J.’s often did, and Lucy uncurled herself to look at him. He had to be their age, but his face was so plastered with dirt she couldn’t tell who he was.
    “What are you asking me for?” J.J.’s words seemed to want to slide back down his throat. He crossed his arms and hid his hands in his armpits. His “You’re the one who almost ran over somebody” came out only half sure.
    Lucy stifled a groan. J.J. was backing down. That could only mean this guy was —
    “I was trying to keep from hitting you ,” the kid said.
    His “you” came out as “jew.” Yep. It was Gabe Navarra, the biggest kid in sixth grade, Hispanic through and