The Boy Who Knew Everything Read Online Free Page A

exchange.
    â€œI guess he doesn’t like surprises,” Piper offered, her cheeks pink. “I’ll give this to him later.” She tucked the file beneath her arm. “I know he’ll appreciate it when he’s not so … well, so Conrad.”
    J. sighed and gathered his things, hoisting his backpack over his shoulders. “You can lead a horse to water—”
    â€œâ€”but you can’t make it drink,” Piper finished.
    J. headed for the door, Piper hot on his heels.
    â€œYou’re leaving? Already? Can’t you stay longer?” Piper pressed him. “Don’t you want cake?”
    â€œThere are urgent matters.” J. strode purposefully into the farmyard. “I have a source and this time I think I’m getting close.”
    â€œYou mean to finding out about that secret place where everyone is like us?” Piper asked excitedly and perhaps too loudly.
    â€œShhhhh.”
    â€œSorry.” J. had been telling her for months that he was hot on the trail of information that was leading him to a hidden community of people who were all exceptional. It was thrilling to think about.
    â€œWill you tell me when you know?” Piper whispered.
    J. was already turning himself invisible, but Piper was able to see him tip his head. “You’ll be hearing from me soon.”

 
    CHAPTER
    4
    Conrad’s birthday breakfast was a higgledy-piggledy affair. With eleven youngens packed around the McClouds’ breakfast table telling jokes and jostling elbows for greater room while reaching over one another to get at the hot blueberry muffins, crisp bacon, cheesy omelets, hotcakes, and waffles it was a mercy no one was maimed, or worse. At one point little Jasper, who normally didn’t make a peep, laughed so hard at a joke of Smitty’s (“What’s the last thing that goes through a bug’s mind when he hits a windshield? His butt!”) that he went red in the face, brayed like a donkey, and snorted egg out of his nose. This, in turn, caused such hilarity that Kimber gave herself a jolt of electricity and Daisy accidentally broke her chair into bits when she burped unexpectedly—and in an alarmingly smelly way. When everyone had finally calmed down and eaten more than they could possibly hold, Betty served cake and ice cream and shooed them away and told them to play outside, and for heaven’s sake not to cause any more mischief.
    Next, Piper gathered everyone around Conrad on the porch for presents. Conrad proceeded to shake each of the strangely shaped objects and pointedly guess, in a hopeful way, that they might contain weapons-grade plutonium for his time machine. To which everyone rolled their eyes and assured him that no one was going to give him plutonium for his birthday. Conrad pretended to be disappointed but dug into his gifts with good humor.
    Lily gave Conrad a silk tie, which was met with groans that she stubbornly ignored as she loudly explained how it was the very latest fashion from Paris. Ahmed and Nalen whipped up a small windstorm that tidily snatched the tie away in the hopes of putting an end to Lily’s fashion lesson. Undaunted, Lily telekinetically retrieved the precious tie while at the same time “accidentally” tipping the Mustafa brothers’ drinks into their laps (which was Lily’s way of politely reminding them not to mess with her or, and perhaps more important, a fashionable silk tie).
    Violet gave Conrad an extremely rare coin that she had dug up in her latest archaeological adventure. But it was Myrtle’s present that caused an uproar. On one of her recent jaunts across the globe Myrtle had stumbled across a pygmy rhinoceros. He was a box-shaped creature no larger than a football, and Myrtle had clumsily wrapped him in a package so that when Conrad opened it, startling him out of his nap, he immediately chomped down on Conrad’s fingers.
    â€œOwww!” Conrad jerked his