Revenge of the Snob Squad Read Online Free Page A

up. That’s his business. He sells
     hard-to-find car parts.”
    They
would
be hard to find in that jalopy junkyard, I thought.
    Max added, “You can come to my house with me after school today.” It wasn’t a request. She twisted her head toward me. “My
     brother will drive you home afterward.”
    We were all expecting it, the whine, the excuse, the drawn-out explanation. The three of us looked at Lydia.
    “I’ll have to call my mother at work,” is all she said. Shock. She retrieved the thermometer from under the sink and blew
     it off.
    We got up to follow Lydia to the phone. On the way out, Prairie took the thermometer from Lydia and squinted at it. “N-n-normal,”
     she pronounced.
    “Must be defective,” I muttered. Max slugged my shoulder. Good thing I’m padded.
    We rendezvoused at the clown target after school. Before leaving the school yard, Max flung one last dirt clod at Bozo. Direct
     hit, right between the eyes.
    Max led us down Erie Avenue, through the alley, and in between a row of decrepit apartment houses. The sign said LUXURY LIVING .
    “Which one’s Donald Trump’s?” I asked.
    Lydia laughed. Max and Prairie didn’t get it, I guess.
    As we passed by the burned-out firehouse, we all gaped, and gulped. None of us dared look at Max. At the junkyard—excuse me,
     Used Auto Parts Establishment—we picked our way through the catacombs of car corpses back to a ramshackle house, nearly camouflaged
     in the rubble.
    “I’m home!” Max bellowed as she hurled open the back door. No one answered. It was dim in the kitchen, even though it was
     still broad daylight at three-thirty in the afternoon and the overhead light was on. The walls were dingy, covered in striped,
     mousy wallpaper, stained and peeling at the corners. I wouldn’t normally notice wallpaper except there was movement behind
     one strip over by the stove. Maybe it was my imagination, or maybe this was the original roach motel.
    “I said I’m home!” Max’s husky voice, raised in volume, flattened my ears.
    “Keep it down, toad breath.” A taller, hairier version of Max emerged from the darkened doorway. He wore blue jeans, no shirt,
     shaggy beard. He looked like he’d just got out of bed. “Mom’s channeling,” he said, raking fingers through his snarled hair.
    Beside me I felt Max tense. “These are my friends.” She nodded to us. “Solano, Lyd, and Prayer. My brother, Scuzz-Gut.” They
     traded sneers.
    “Don’t you want to know who died?” he said to Max.
    “Not really.” She flung her backpack through the open doorway into the living room. I’ve always wanted to do that—announce
     my arrival home by pitching my backpack through the door. With my luck I’d bust a lamp.
    “Some old lady’s great-aunt from Cleveland,” he told her anyway, scratching his chest. “She wants to find out where the old
     bag buried all her money.”
    I wanted to ask, but the look Max shot me said, “Don’t.” A thought flashed through my head: Where is Cleveland? Then another
     one: I wish I lived here. The most unusual thing that ever happened at my house was the cable TV cutting out.
    Even though we were squeezed in the kitchen tight as a Twinkies twelve-pack, Scuzz-Gut wrenched open the refrigerator and
     pulled out a beer. Max said to him, “Mind if we hang out in the old VW van?”
    “The Peacemobile?” He popped the top.
    “We won’t wreck anything.”
    “Better not. That microbus is a classic. I had a guy in looking at it yesterday. He might be interested.”
    “In what?” Max said sarcastically. “The rusted-out frame? The battery cavity? The cracked engine block?”
    She rolled her eyes at me. I was impressed with her knowledge of automobiles. I knew tires, steering wheel, tape player….
    Her brother wedged by us toward the living room door. “Just don’t contaminate it with cooties.” He shivered all over.
    I looked at Max. She made some hand gesture at her brother’s back I’d never seen