Lump Read Online Free Page A

was then that Buzz knew he was onto something. He'd come to the right man at the right place. Because the black object was what he'd been searching for all along.
    A lump of coal.
    Buzz stood there, unable to take his eyes off it, trying to process what it meant. He knew one thing for sure: its presence couldn't be a coincidence.
    "Well...well... well." Mr. Bittermaker's voice, which was usually deep and resonant, had been reduced to a hoarse , halting whisper. "Look what...the cat... dragged in."
    Buzz had a shock when he turned to look at him . For as long as he could remember, Bittermaker had been a beer-bellied man, short and slight but endowed with a huge bulb of a gut. Now, it was like a dinosaur had bitten it off in one giant bite. The belly was gone, the bed sheet pooling in the cavity left behind.
    The rest of him was similarly reduced. He was nothing but skin and bones, like twigs wrapped in tissue paper. His head was so emaciated, it looked like it was skinless, as if someone had just dipped the skull in flesh-colored paint and dabbed on a few patches of wispy white hair.
    His bloodshot eyes, like deflated balloons, had retracted into sockets that seemed to grow deeper by the minute . His cheeks were as hollow as if someone had dug them out with an ice cream scoop. A pair of thin plastic tubes ran from his scabby nostrils and wrapped around his gauzy ears, leading to a machine on the floor beside his bed.
    He looked awful. "Come to... play a prank on me ... Buzz?" After he said it, he took a deep breath through the tubes in his nose.
    Buzz wasn't sure what to say first. "Hi, Mr. B-M." The words flew out before he could stop them--his own special nickname for Mr. Bittermaker, guaranteed to rattle his cage ...though it didn't feel quite right this time.
    If the nickname made Mr. Bittermaker mad, he didn't show it. "Ca ll me...Max." His trembling lips formed a weak smile. "So let me...guess. You've come...to gloat."
    Buzz frowned. "Why would I do that?"
    "Because the neighborhood...is all yours now . You win ."
    Buzz shook his head. For once in his life, the snarky quips weren't flowing freely.
    "Well...if you've come to...get your last digs in...better make it snappy." Mr. Bittermaker's chuckle became a deep, wet cough.
    Again, Buzz found himse lf at a loss for a wisecrack. As he r estlessly scrubbed his fingers through his rat's nest, his eyes drifted back to the black lump on the bedside table. It glittered and gleamed in the sunlight streaming in from the window.
    "Ah." Mr. Bittermaker nodded. "I should...have known." He lifted one bony, shivering hand and gestured for Buzz to come closer. "Go ahead. Pick it up...if you like."
    Buzz hesitated, then walked to the table. As he reached for the lump, he wrestled with the questions rolling around inside his head. Why was it that all of a sudden he was having so much trouble talking to one old man...an old man he'd taunted and ridiculed to his face so many times before?
    "So, uh..." The coal felt hard and light in his hand. "What's with this?"
    "It used to be...a tradition." Mr. Bittermaker breathed deeply with his eyes closed, then opened them halfway. "But I had to stop...this year...when I got sick."
    Black dust stuck to Buzz's fingers and palm as he turned the lump over and around. "What kind of tradition?"
    "Every Christmas Eve...I'd leave it in the mail...for a certain holy terror." Mr. Bittermaker opened his eyes all the way and grinned. His false teeth were out, leaving only bright red gums behind quivering lips. "Care to guess...who that terror...might be?"
    Buzz gaped at him in surprise . He'd always thought Santa Claus was the one doing the lumping; his mom and dad had let him go on thinking it, too. Never had it crossed his mind that Mr. B-M might be the lump-leaver.
    "But why ?" For once, Buzz's wide-eyed look of innocen t puzzlement was for real. " Why did you do it?"
    "When I was young...someone did the same...for me." Mr. Bittermaker managed a smirk. "I