The Princes of Tangleforest Read Online Free

his front door, he went straight to the kitchen. He rounded the corner and came to an abrupt stop; all three of the Princes, plus Darla sat around the breakfast table with Tanner’s mom. The boys looked ridiculous, like they had stepped out of the movie, “Men in Black,” but so much less cool. More like, “Nerds in Navy Blue.”
    His mom said, “There he is. Hi, Tan.”
    “We came looking for you,” Zachary said, “and Joanne invited us in for cookies.”
    “We love cookies,” Johnny said.
    He wondered if they had already brainwashed her and turned her against him. He studied his mom for a second, searching for signs of geekiness, finally deciding that it would be too difficult to distinguish; she was from the 80s. “What are y’all doing here?”
    Zachary replied, “I hope you don’t mind. We wanted to welcome you to our friendly community and to our school. ”
    Joanne’s head was cocked to one side, and she wore a slight frown. “I’ll go do some unpacking. I’ll let you kids talk.” When she walked past Tanner she whispered, “Be nice.”
    Great, she thought he was just being rude to the little nerds.
    Tanner kept his distance, remembering what Julia had said. “Don’t let them touch you...” He waited until he thought his mom was out of range and said, “I do mind. Leave now and we won’t have any problems.”
    “Don’t worry.” Zachary smiled. “We’re not going to play our game on you, yet. We know Jules has taken you into her confidence.”
    “Yeah, confidence,” Darla said coyly.
     “Shut up, Darla,” Zachary said. “You’re crusin’ for a bruisin’.”
    “You shut up,” Darla said.
    Tanner wondered why they made him so nervous when they were so dang lame.
    “I guess she gave you an earful. But that’s okay. We actually have a deal for you. We want you to join us.”
    “Yeah,” Tanner laughed. “Right.”
    “We’ve read your transcripts. We know you’ve got jets.”
    “My transcripts? I didn’t even know… how? Oh. I see, I guess you have access to everything in the office.”
    “You’re GT, a smart kid… one of us.”
    “No… not one of you.”
    “Don’t be so quick to put us down. Look at our position of power and notoriety. We are the Princes of the school. We rule. Just think how happy Joanne will be when you have scholarships out the wazoo.”
    “That’s Mrs. Dobbs to you,” Tanner said through his teeth.
    Zachary continued talking, “We don’t have to worry about bullies. We don’t have to build ourselves up from being rejected by girls—we don’t get rejected. We have it all, and we are offering it all to you.”
    “We don’t do that very often,” round faced Sean said. “Feel lucky, Punk.”
    “Thanks, but I do all right. I think I’ll just hang out with Julia and the hot cheerleaders.”
    “We can have any girl we want,” Johnny said standing up quickly, knocking the chair over as he did.
    “Cool your jets,” Zachary said. “Maybe you and Jules deserve one another. We can arrange it to where y’all are all alone. And we’ll take the cheerleaders.”
    “Zachary!” Darla said.
    Tanner smiled. A little crack in their construction could only be good.
    “Don’t look so satisfied there.” Zachary stood up. “You’ve got a long way to go before you could ever destroy this monarchy. We’ll give you some time to think about it. You have two days. If you don’t come begging to join us by then, it’s your own grave.”
    “Funeral.” Tanner shook his head.
    “Exactly.”
    Tanner wanted it to be over. He wanted them to leave him alone. “You can take your two days and shove them up your—”
     “Stop!” Zachary pointed at Tanner. “Not in front of the lady.” He draped his arm around Darla. “You have not chosen wisely.” He and Darla walked out of the kitchen and the rest of them followed.
    When he heard the front door shut, he sat down at the table and put his face in his hands. Other than his heart racing a bit, he