The Fourth Stall Part III Read Online Free

did unless they were coming to see me for help. It was a good place for an office because there wasn’t much of anything in that part of the school at all.
    â€œDo you think the school has done anything with it?” Vince nodded toward our old offices.
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe. But what would they do, make it a museum? I mean, it’s still just a nonfunctioning bathroom; there are not a lot of options.”
    â€œWell, my grandma always says, ‘Your options are only as limited as the chocolate ice cream that you store inside of your skull. Give me some of that ice cream!’ She shouts and then tries to twist the top of my head open like it was some kind of jar.”
    I laughed. She’d actually tried to do this to me once, too. At first it had been terrifying—a crazy old lady trying to pop off the top of your head so she can eat the chocolate ice cream she thinks is inside of it—but she was so weak that after a few seconds it just kind of started to tickle, which made me laugh, and then his grandma laughed, too, and then she forgot what she’d even been trying to do in the first place.
    Just then I noticed another kid had started walking next to Vince and me.
    â€œHey, Nick,” I said, nodding to the newcomer.
    â€œMac, Vince. I got to talk to you guys,” Nick said.
    â€œWhat’s up?” I asked, even though I knew what was coming.
    He shrugged and made one of his faces. “Well, first, I lost my iPhone. And my bike frame got scratched. Plus, I heard from this one kid that the Dolphins might trade away their star linebacker for a measly fourth-round pick, but they’ll probably be terrible anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter. Then I broke Brandon Decker’s new glasses by accident when I tripped in the lunchroom and spilled my food all over the kids at his table. Oh, and my pet turtle died yesterday.”
    Now, you might hear this and feel bad for Nick. Like, how much tragedy could befall a kid in a week, right? But that’s the thing about Nick: this was pretty normal for him. He hadn’t earned the nickname Eeyore for nothing. In fact, he seemed to be more positive than usual today. Whenever you asked him how he was doing, he’d launch into an answer so depressing, a black cloud would form around your head and you’d feel like you were drowning in bad news. Plus, he always talked really slowly and sadly, just like Eeyore, the donkey from those old Winnie the Pooh cartoons. I kind of always imagined Nick to have a trombone player following him around playing depressing and dubious baritones. Eeyore used to be a pretty frequent customer of mine, but in recent years he’d stopped coming because, no matter what I did to fix his problems, he always came up with new ones caused by my solutions. I’d have been offended by anybody else complaining so much about my solutions, but everybody knew that’s just how he was.
    â€œRough week,” I said.
    Eeyore shrugged slowly. Cue a few blats from a trombone.
    â€œIt’s been better than last week,” he said. “Last week I had a splinter in my finger all week that got infected. Then I had a toothache and my mom’s car had a flat tire on the way home from the dentist and we had to walk like three miles, which gave me blisters on both feet. I went outside the next day and got some gravel stuck in my shoe, and I hate taking off my shoes because one time I took them off for like two minutes and someone stole one of them. So then the gravel got stuck in my blister and it hurt all day. The blisters just now are starting to go away, but I ruined my favorite socks the day they popped. Plus, my favorite TV show got canceled. Then at dinner on Friday my sister sneezed on my food, and I’m pretty sure she got me sick. And I lost my favorite lucky penny.” Blaaaah-Ruuump.
    Vince stifled a laugh. That was really the only way to react to Eeyore: humor. If you let him get