Sons of Liberty Read Online Free Page A

though, because not only was Mr. Faella neither a prince nor any kid’s pal, but if you attached the two words you ended up with princepal, which wasn’t even the right spelling.
    Rock checked out Liza. Her face was still flushed pink from the outdoors and excitement. Crazy enough, but he knew she loved being in the principal’s office. Liza would rather be anywhere than in room 7A, Mrs. Zukoff’s seventh-grade class, practically flunking every subject. Liza’s life with Mrs. Zukoff was a long, scribbled road of Please see mes.
    On his other side, Cliff cleared his throat and exhaled a breath of anger through his nostrils. Rock squirmed in his chair, gently scraping it nearer to Liza. He hated sitting so close to the wasps’ nest of Cliff’s rage.
    “So, what do you think, Heathcliff?” Mr. Faella finally broke the silence that had fallen on the group immediately after his boring, wordy lecture about manners and decency and the honor codes of Sheffield Junior High.
    “ ’Scuse me?” Cliff straightened himself in his seat.
    “What I mean to say is, what do you think should happen to your brother? I’d asked you to join us because I feel that Rochester’s improvement might be expedited if we opened the doors on his behavioral problem, made it more a family affair. And I thought you might have some perspicacity.”
    “What about me?” Liza piped up. “I have the most perspirwhatever, since it was my idea, that rock. Brig—Mitchell, I mean, he even had to go to the nurse’s office. He might have a scar. And it was all my—”
    “Your idea, I know, Liza.”
    “Eliza Beth.” Liza leaned forward. “It’s Eliza Beth, my real name. Since you’re calling everyone …” She rippled her fingers at Rock and Cliff, but then her voice melted into silence at Mr. Faella’s frown.
    Mr. Faella closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, displacing his glasses. “Eliza Beth,” he repeated.
    “Mr. Faella, look, I gotta go.” Cliff shifted to the edge of the chair, hands gripped over his knees, poised but not quite daring to stand up. “I gotta catch that changeover bus to the high school. They said they’d wait for me specially. I don’t know what Rock’s supposed to do except for apologize. And maybe do some extra stuff, help around the school. I don’t know.”
    “So first, you think, an apology?”
    “I dunno.”
    Rock felt the odd shift between the two: Mr. Faella’s reach for something, any little thing, that would help him understand Rock, and then the equally firm pull of Cliff’s unwillingness. Tug, tug, tug, went the silence. Mr. Faella finally rolled back his wheely chair and stood up. Even at full height, he was shorter than Liza.
    “Eliza Beth Vincent. Rochester Kindle.” He spoke slowly; their names in his mouth sounded rich, the black oil of their crime tasted in each syllable. “You will formally apologize to Mr. Briggs, and then you will both use your recesses all next week to help out the maintenance department. And yes, I will be calling your parents.”
    Cliff had already bolted out the door by the word “maintenance.” Mr. Faella twisted his wedding ring, staring hard at the empty space that had been Cliff, before leveling his gaze on Rock.
    “Your brother was no trouble at all to us, Rochester, in all his years here at Sheffield Elementary and Junior High. Remarkable soccer player, won the science fair two years in a row. It’s unfortunate that your own career here has been so problematic.” He glanced at the door again, as if half-hoping Cliff would return.
    “I’m a good soccer player, too,” Rock said. “I play on Scudder’s Pizza, in the intermediate league.”
    “You know that’s not my point.” Mr. Faella stretched his arms high over his head before pulling the fingers of both hands slowly through his velvety greased hair. He closed his eyes.
    “Go on, now. Both you kids. Go.”
    Rock and Liza moved aimlessly, meandering down the halls to their