Saving Lucas Biggs Read Online Free

“Recess!” she called.
    I immediately did what any sane guy would do: I ran out the door and hightailed it to the farthest, dustiest, windiest, most cactus-filled corner of the school yard, and I hid behind a rock.
    Peeking cautiously around my rock, I saw a kid who looked just like the guy who’d stomped on my dad’s helmet before work that morning stalking my way across the skittery rock shards of the school yard. Same curly black hair. Same ridiculously wide shoulders, like a door inside a flannel shirt. Same legs, same toes. Even the same voice when he shouted at me, “Hey, kid!” only he didn’t have his dad’s accent. He balled up his fists, running straight my way, sporting a look you might wear to spar with a grizzly bear, so I gritted my teeth and balled up my fists, too.
    “No!” he said, pointing behind me. “I’m not—”
    I heard a thunk like a watermelon falling out a second-floor window. Fireworks exploded in front of me. My head felt like it was full of bees. The rocky ground rushed up to meet my face. Turned out that thunk ing sound was somebody sucker punching me. Woodrow. Assisted by three of his closest friends.
    Lying on the gravel, I could easily see that Woodrow and his pals wore spotless white basketball shoes. With that fresh-out-of-the-box sparkle. My guess was these sneakers meant they all had dads who were doctors, lawyers, store owners, mine managers, or something else that made them rich, so they got to spend their time enjoying activities that didn’t get their shoes dirty.
    In the midst of the fog circulating around my brain, I also happened to notice that the kid with black hair wore scuffed, old, hand-me-down work boots like my own. I didn’t have time to think about the deeper significance of this before he pasted Woodrow so hard across the bridge of the nose that Woodrow did a half a backflip and collapsed into a little heap.
    Just like that, I had a new problem on my hands. The kid with black hair sat down across Woodrow’s chest with his knees on either side and proceeded to punch him over and over in the head, howling, “You can’t do that! You can’t do that!” Woodrow’s alleged friends vamoosed.
    “Stop, Luke! Please! Stop!” begged Woodrow.
    I grabbed this kid Luke under the arms and hauled like a twenty-mule team. I managed to drag him off Woodrow long enough for Woodrow to scram. Once Woodrow was gone, Luke blinked, and shivered, and managed to get control of himself. He laughed a short laugh. “Score one for the good guys,” he said.
    “Right,” I replied cautiously.
    He held out his hand. “What’s your name again?” he asked, smiling a wide white smile.
    “Josh Garrett,” I told him. “I guess you must be . . . Luke?”
    “Luke Agrippa,” he replied, and we shook.
    And then, standing there, not moving a muscle, I stumbled.
    Luke’s face turned white and I heard screams from up and down the streets of Victory.
    “The mine!” whispered Luke. The second he said it, a siren wailed, and it seemed like the whole town materialized on Main Street and began a stampede toward the base of the Victory sign, where the mine’s entrance huddled under the skirt of the mountain.
    “Presto! Presto!” I screamed, searching for my brother as the little kids streamed out of the school. I spotted him, and breathed a sigh of relief.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked Luke as I took Preston’s hand.
    “Collapse,” said Luke, as we rode on the human wave all the way to the mine entrance. “That was the jolt in the ground.”
    “Two down!” shouted a man holding a telephone receiver at the gate to the mine elevator as we skidded to a halt in front of him. “Achilles Alexandropoulos. Back is broke. And they say that new fella. The one that started this morning. Tried to reach Achilles while the roof was still falling. Garrett? Garrett? What?”
    Luke looked at me in horror. “Your dad,” he breathed.

Margaret
    2014
    I RODE HOME FROM THE COURTHOUSE in what I