Jack James and the Tribe of the Teddy Bear Read Online Free Page B

all.”
    “I don’t want your advice.”
    Ignoring Jack’s wishes, Dillon slowed from his usual rapid fire to something resembling a normal speech pattern.
    “Jack, you’re smart. You’re not a total troll. You’ve got good things going for you. If only you’d stop all that stupid talk about your dad and his weird science stuff, you’d be popular. Don’t you wanna be popular?”
    He thought about it. No matter how much he wanted to deny it, Dillon was right. He did want to be popular. Everyone did. But, more than that, he wanted his ideas to be popular. He wanted the other kids to listen to his dad’s theories about omnidimensional energy, and how it would alter the future of the human race. Was that too much to ask?
    “That’s a big problem, too, Jack,” Dillon forced him from his thoughts. “Right there, what you’re doing right now. That daydreaming crap. That’s gotta end. No slipping off into la-la dreamland. It’s creepy, man.”
    Jack kept quiet, figuring Dillon would get tired of hearing his own voice and give up. No such luck.
    “Listen, you gotta stop with the spooky science stuff, okay?”
    Jack frowned at the pavement. Asking him to stop thinking about science was the same as asking the sun to stop shining, or in Oregon it would have been like asking the rain to quit falling. The only thing even remotely comforting was he knew they’d almost made it across the parking lot to Winmart. Thank goodness, too. If he had to spend just one more second with Dillon, he would have yanked out his own hair. Just a few more steps and he’d be inside the store, hearing his mom saying those magical words…
    “Let’s go home.”
     
    “WE CAN’T GO HOME yet, Jack. Sorry,” Elizabeth James wiped both hands on her nauseatingly green Winmart apron. “I have to work late.”
    “Mom!” he complained. “I really wanna go home.”
    “I know, sweetheart,” she tried to disarm him with a smile. “I have to stay, though.”
    “No you don’t. You don’t have to stay. No one’s forcing you. Let’s go, Mom.”
    “You sound just like your father,” she sighed and brushed aside her light chestnut bangs. “I can’t stand how that man has warped your brain. Why won’t you two ever learn? As opposed to you and your dad, I live in the real world, you hear me? With responsibilities and bills to pay. We have rent, we have to eat…”
    “But Mom!”
    “I don’t have time to argue with you, Jack. There’s a ton of inventory that just came in, and it’s my job to deal with it. So you have two choices: you can go play in Kid Kastle, or you can help me.”
    He bent to get a view of Kid Kastle, a play area sectioned off by a wall of Styrofoam slabs painted gray to look like a medieval fortress. In one of the decorated windows, he saw Dillon, pressed against the glass, his mouth agape and attached, resembling the sucker of a giant squid.
    “I, um,” Jack deliberated. “I think I’ll help you.”
    “Oh, honey,” his mom noticed his moodiness. “Why don’t you want to play with your friend? He seems really nice.”
    He gave his mother a cynical glance and followed her through a set of swinging doors leading to the storeroom. There they found a heavyset man in brown shorts wheeling in stacks of boxes.
    “Howdy, folks,” the man greeted them. Jack spotted the name, Doug , embroidered on his shirt. “Got a special delivery for ya’,” Doug smiled from ear to ear at Jack. “TOYS!”
    He was a kid on Christmas morning. Jack, on the other hand, didn’t impress so easy.
    “Come on, now,” Doug tried to coax a smile from the boy. “You’ve gotta like toys.”
    “He loves toys, don’t you, Jack?” his mother spoke for him. “Don’t be rude, answer the man.”
    He took a breath to ready his reply when the door swung open. In walked Dillon with his mother Roberta Shane, the store assistant manager. Actually, Jack refused to believe Roberta was Dillon’s mom. They were nothing alike. While he was