Books : Monday Morning Blitz : Excerpts

Chapter One

"What's that thing on your face?" Keith asked me.

I took a shot in the dark. "My nose?"

"No," Keith said. "That other thing."

I hadn't had time to look in the mirror this morning, so I had no idea what he was talking about. "What other thing?"

"The 'other thing' that looks like you're trying to grow an other nose on your forehead."

I reached up and touched my forehead, feeling around.

Oh, no! I knew it the minute my fingers hit the large bump. I had a pimple. A big pimple. A huge pimple, really. I had a zit the size of Mount Fuji. Great.

"How could you not notice that, Al?" Keith asked.

"I didn't look in the mirror this morning," I said as I leaned close to Keith to catch my reflection in his glasses.

"Yeah, I get that now," he said as he pushed me away. "You didn't brush your teeth either. Did you?!"

I huffed into my cupped hand and sniffed it. "No. Sorry."

Keith shrugged. "I only have one word for you. Breath mint!"

"That's two words," I said, trying not to show that I was embarrassed.

Keith handed me an orange Tic Tac.

"Have any cinnamon?" I asked.

He pushed my hand with the Tic Tac to my face. "No. I don't. Do I look like a candy store?" he asked. "Just eat it, Al. Take my word. You need it."

"But I'm not a big fan of orange," I said truthfully.

"I'm not a big fan of your stinky breath. Just eat the thing."

I popped it in my mouth. It didn't taste that bad. It didn't taste that good, either. But that's only because I just don't like orange flavor. I think it goes back to when I was a kid. Every time I got sick, my mom would give me this gross orange-flavored medicine. I gagged on it every time and used to wonder what was worse: the cold or the cure.

"Hey, get a load of that," Keith said, pointing to a man running down the street. He was heading our way. Fast.

If he were wearing sweats, it wouldn't have looked so funny. But he was wearing a suit and tie and shiny black shoes. I could see their shine all the way from where I stood, so they had to be really shiny.

"You think he's running to something, or running away from something?" I asked aloud.

I hadn't expected an answer, I was just thinking out loud.

I do that a lot. You know, talk to myself. I call it "thinking out loud" because that sounds better than saying I'm a nutcase who talks to himself.

The guy was running toward us as if his life depended upon it. He was about five feet away when he looked over his shoulder.

Keith and I tried to get out of his way and moved over, but he wasn't looking forward. That would explain why he crashed right into me -- knocking me over.

I landed on my backpack, and one of my books stabbed me in the ribs. "Ow!" I cried out.

"Why don't you look where you're going?" Keith said to the guy.

I doubt he heard Keith because the man was already halfway down the block. But he did look back quickly, wave, and call out, "Sorry!"

I got up and was just straightening out my jacket when I felt a lump in my pocket. It was probably my rib. I was too afraid to find out. I'm not too keen on blood, especially when it's my own.

I don't mind seeing blood in the movies. That's pretty cool. Plus, everyone knows it's just ketchup or something. But real blood? Let's just say my firm C-minus average wasn't the only thing keeping me from medical school.

"That really hurt," I said to Keith. I was trying not to think about the rib poking through my skin at an odd angle. I couldn't even look to see if blood was pouring out of me. I figured if it was, someone would let me know sooner or later.

The bus pulled up, and we grabbed our stuff to get on. If we didn't get on the bus fast enough, Mrs. Sewers, the bus driver, took off without us.

"Oh man, this hurts," I said with a groan as I lifted my heavy backpack.

"Quit your griping," Keith said.

"But it hurt! He knocked the wind out of me. I'm having trouble catching my breath," I said truthfully. I wondered if my broken rib pierced a lung or something. That couldn't be good.

"Well, what do you want from me? Mouth-to-mouth? Not with that breath."

I pushed him up the stairs of the bus.

"Hey! No foul play, boys!" Mrs. Sewers barked. She was like the drill sergeant of bus drivers. "Not on my bus!" she added as a warning. It was warning enough. No one messed with Mrs. Sewers. Rumor had it, she was called Mrs. Sewers because she grew up in the sewers. She was one tough old lady. And few people messed with her.

"I have a perfect safety record, and you hooligans aren't going to ruin it for me!" she said gruffly.

She worried about her safety record. A lot. She'd been driving a bus for twenty years without one incident, and she was proud of that.

"'Hooligans'?" Keith asked. "Who says 'hooligans'?"

I shrugged, then regretted the movement. The pain in my rib felt like a knife going through me. Well, what I'd think a knife going through me would feel like. Not good.

We took our assigned seats. Luckily, Keith and I were assigned to the same bench. We kids always thought it was stupid to have assigned seats on a bus, but it was another one of Mrs. Sewers's safety rules.

It was always quiet on the bus in the mornings. At that hour, most of us were still half asleep.

When we got to school, everyone piled off the bus.

I held my backpack in my hand because my rib still hurt. So of course as I walked down the crowded hallway, some guy clipped my side. When I rubbed it, that's when I felt the thing that kept stabbing into me.