By the Grace of Todd Page 12

  Max threw his arm around her shoulder and revealed his true colors once and for all. “Aw, that’s so cute, protecting the BF from the big bad bully ’cause you know there’s not another guy on the planet who would lock lips with a dogface like you.”

  That got her. Lucy teared up and tried to get away, but he gripped her shoulder even harder. “What’s it feel like to be so smart? Do you fart in Latin?”

  I had to grab Persephone, who was running down my arm to deal with Max herself. He was too busy tormenting Lucy to notice.

  Max pulled one of Lucy’s braids and squeaked, “Oh, I just love your hair. Who does it? Bride of Frankenstein? Or do you just stick your finger in a light socket?”

  Lucy was really crying now. Being homeschooled, she probably wasn’t used to being picked on. She didn’t make any sound, but tears streaked down her cheeks.

  I tried to think of a way to shut Max up, but he didn’t give me a chance.

  “Aw, did that hurt your feelings?” He bent down and shoved the ski mask at her. “You know, if I was as ugly as you, Dodo Girl, I’d wear a mask over my face too.”

  She made her escape then, sobbing as she ran toward our block. I started to run after her but remembered that the Toddlians were still in Max’s clutches. If I left now, I would lose them for sure.

  “Horsewhip him!” Persephone hissed in my ear.

  “Uh, Max,” I said lamely, “do you think Mr. Katcher would let us do the circus tomorrow, since we have them back now?” I was crossing my fingers that if we could still find a way for Max to get his A, he’d finally let me keep the Toddlians. It was clearer now than ever that I definitely couldn’t trust him with them.

  Max smiled at me. It was not a nice smile. “How do we know the little roaches won’t scatter in the night?” He shook the matchbox, and I could just make out more Toddlian screams. “How can you guarantee me they won’t disappear again?”

  “I—”

  “You can’t! So I have a better plan—one that’s a foolproof way to get my A.” Max smushed the end of my nose with his finger. “And you’re gonna help me.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Max headed back toward school and jerked his head for me to follow. “Look,” he said as he walked, jangling the matchbox, “I know I was kinda rough on your girlfriend. I’ve been stressed after that F in science. But you can help me fix my grades.”

  I wanted to tell him Lucy was not my girlfriend, but instead I asked, “How?” I had to keep playing along if I was going to get the Toddlians back.

  “We’ll steal the answer key to the next test.”

  Steal? My heart sank. I’d never stolen so much as a piece of candy. I might be a forgetful slob, but I was an honest forgetful slob.

  “I am certain you will make the right decision, Great Todd,” Lewis said in my ear. “We believe in you!”

  I cleared my throat, which felt like it had a bowling ball stuck in it. “Uh, how do you plan on stealing the answer key?”

  “Not me, Little Butty, we. I got a visual on it today at lunch when me and the boys were egging the teachers’ cars, but I need someone small, like you, to squeeze in and do the dirty work. The answer key is in one of those beige folders in Katcher’s passenger seat. I saw it sticking out.”

  I stopped walking. “You’re going to break into his car?”

  “Remember Watergate!” Herman whispered.

  Max threw his arm around my shoulder, the matchbox still in his other hand. “We are going to break into his car. It’ll be a cinch. It’s an old VW Bug, and I’ll just jimmy the lock with a coat hanger, and you can slip right in and grab it. My brother taught me how—nothin’ to it.”

  He gave me a shove and I walked with him to the school, feeling sicker every second. I had to find a way out of this. “Won’t Mr. Katcher already be gone?”

  “Naw, he’s the soccer coach, and there’s practice today, so we’ve got plenty of time.”

  I glanced at the soccer field, clear over on the other side of the school. Sure enough, Mr. Katcher was there with his trusty clipboard in one hand. He had his back to us, putting the players through dribble drills.

  It was now or never. I decided to try something I’d never been able to muster the guts to do before: reason with Max. “Uh, why can’t you just study for the test to bring your grade up? I could help you do that.”

  Herman chimed in. “Me too!”

  Max snorted. “I’m not a science geek like your girlfriend. I need a guaranteed A. Besides, I’ve got more important things to do with my time than spend hours learning about crusty magma and all that other dumb stuff.”

  “Why is this grade so important to you?” I was in this deep, so I might as well ask. “Aren’t you a little obsessed with this A? Can’t you save up for an Xbox?”

  Max tossed the closed matchbox into the air and caught it. The poor Toddlians inside went ballistic. The three in my hair were hollering too, and Persephone spurred my scalp so hard I almost screamed myself.

  “Look, I’ll tell you the truth,” Max explained. “There’s lots more at stake here than an Xbox. My parents are threatening to ship me off to some military school in Virginia if I don’t pull my grades up, pronto.”

  “Good riddance,” Persephone muttered.

  I was tempted to tell Max that breaking into a teacher’s car for a test key would probably get him suspended, which wouldn’t exactly help his grades, but I was all out of guts.

  “I had that science grade locked in, until your freak of a girlfriend got in my way.”

  I was scared he would crush the Toddlians, he was squeezing the matchbox so hard. Desperate, I tried another way out. “Look, I don’t feel good—”

  “I know how you feel,” Max said in a calmer voice. “We’d better just get it over with so we can go to the skate park. Didn’t you say you got a new board? Maybe Nixy and Spud can teach you a few tricks. You should see Dick’s kick flip; he’s got serious skills.”

  Lewis hiccupped in my hair, which meant he was probably crying for the fate of the Toddlians again. That did it. I took a deep breath, knowing it might well be my last, and said as fast as I could, “I’ll help you on one condition: let me have the Toddlians for safekeeping.”

  “That’s puttin’ it to him, pardner!” Persephone cheered. Finally, I’d showed some spine.

  But Max wasn’t impressed.

  He shoved the matchbox into his shirt pocket. “You’ll get them back once I ace the test. Got it?”

  I sighed. What could I do? “Got it.”

  He whacked me on the shoulder and smiled. “Good. Let’s do this.”

  We’d reached the street behind the school, where Katcher’s light blue relic of a Volkswagen Bug was parked on top of a hill. Several of the cars behind his were dripping with egg goo, so if we were caught, we’d be pinned with doing that as well.

  “Don’t have nothin’ to do with this, Todd,” Persephone pleaded into my ear. “They’ll have the long arm of the law on you if you wrangle that test key! Remember the Alamo!”

  I wasn’t sure what the Alamo had to do with anything, but I was definitely afraid of “the long arm of the law.”

  Not Max. He pulled a wire hanger out of his backpack and untwisted it. “Cover me,” he said, sliding the hooked end between the glass of the window and the driver’s door.

  I scanned the street and watched the soccer field, making sure no one was looking. There were some little kids playing in the sandpit at the bottom of the hill. A few parents sat on park benches, but they were all talking or busy on their smartphones.

  I couldn’t decipher what Max was mumbling over the pounding of my heart in my ears. From the look on his face, I guessed he was cussing.

  “Butroche!” he growled. “Get over here and help me!”

  Turned out he could get the window down, but when he tried the door, it was jammed.
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  “Told you I needed someone small. You’re gonna have to shimmy through the window and grab the answer key. It’s on the passenger seat under that lab coat.”

  My heart pounded. I was prepared to go in through the open door, but this . . . “I—I can’t do that,” I stammered. “It’s breaking and entering.”

  “Don’t make me break something of yours.” Max lunged for me, then changed his mind. He twitched his head and said, “C’mon, I thought we were cool. It’ll only take a sec, then we can go hang at the skate park.”

  I glanced over at the school and down the street. “The Toddlians are mine after the test?”

  “The second it’s over. Now, get in!”

  I stuck my head and chest through the window as far as I could. Max hoisted me by my legs and shoved me in the rest of the way. My left leg hit the horn, and it blared loud enough to be heard in the next county.

  “Duck!” Max yelled, as on the soccer field Mr. Katcher spun toward us. After a minute, I heard his voice and whistle as practice started back up, and I snagged the test and twisted myself around to climb out. Being the klutz that I am, however, somehow I managed to hit the parking brake with my right knee. “Oh NO!”

  “Move over!” Max lurched in through the window and grabbed for the brake. As he stretched toward it, the matchbox fell out of his shirt pocket and slid under the driver’s seat. I dived for the box at the same time as Max, and we conked heads. He cussed and yanked himself out of the window just as the car started rolling down the hill.

  I was tangled up like a pretzel in the driver’s seat with the test key between my teeth and my butt in the air. My left foot was hung up on the passenger seat belt, and I couldn’t shake it loose.

  “The brake!” Max hollered, holding on to the steering wheel of the rolling car. I felt for the matchbox instead, but it was way out of reach, so I turned and pried my foot out of the seat belt, swallowed hard, and bailed out the passenger door. I tried to help stop the car by digging my heels into the asphalt and clinging to the door handle, but it was useless. The car was a lot heavier than me, and it was coasting faster and faster toward the bottom of the hill . . . and the playground.

  The Toddlians in my hair saw the playground at the same time I did. They screamed. I screamed. The car slid past me as I stopped running. My feet melded with the road and I had a flat-out panic attack. The Toddlians would be killed! The little kids would be killed! Oh God! What do I do?

  There was no way I could get the Toddlians out of the car; it was picking up speed every second. The kids swinging and playing were clueless that they were about to be obliterated. They laughed and threw sand like it was the best day of their lives.

  I had to save them somehow.

  “MOOOOOVE!” I yelled, shoving past Max, who had crossed his arms and was casually walking to the other side of the street, whistling carelessly as if he hadn’t just been involved in a car heist. I spread my arms like wings and flew down the hill so fast I almost rolled head over heels into the merry-go-round. “GET OUT OF THE WAY!” I pointed to the car coming right at them and waved my arms like a maniac, herding kids under the slide to safety.

  There was a baby about Daisy’s size sitting oblivious in the sand, jabbering to himself. I scooped him up under my arm and delivered him to the hysterical lady I figured was his mother. At that very moment, the car hit the bottom of the hill and ran off the road. It sailed over the curb and smacked the sidewalk, smashing into a wooden privacy fence.

  The car had missed the kids’ playground, but that didn’t stop them from bawling their heads off. They held on to each other and to the parents that had come running over.

  The mother of the baby hugged me so hard she nearly broke my ribs, blubbering the whole time about me being a hero. I couldn’t compute what the others said as they shook my hand and kissed my cheeks. Finally, I broke loose and ran over to the car, stunned. How would those parents feel if they knew it was my fault their kids had almost been run over by a car?

  I was shaking as I threw open the car door and climbed in, searching for the Toddlians. Max was yelling something, but I couldn’t hear him above the hammering of my own heart. It seemed to beat out one question over and over:

  Had I just killed the Toddlians?

  CHAPTER 24

  Lewis and his friends were having coronaries in my hair. I found the matchbox under the brake pedal and pulled it out, sliding it open with a feeling of dread.

  Inside the box it was chaos, with Toddlians screaming and running everywhere.

  But it didn’t matter . . . They were okay! They were freaked out and crying, but they were safe.

  Max barreled down the hill and stomped over to me. “What were you thinking, Butroche?” he thundered. “Don’t you know what a freakin’ parking brake is? Dude, haven’t you ever driven a car?”

  I looked toward the slide. Thankfully, everyone had scattered. The parents were loading their shook-up kids into car seats. Nobody seemed to have noticed that I went back to the car. The mother of the baby sat in her minivan, facing away from us. She was talking on her cell, and it sounded like she was describing Mr. Katcher’s VW Bug. Oh, great. She called the police.

  Max must’ve had the same idea, because he said, “This is a nice load of horse poop you’ve gotten us into.”

  I’d gotten us into! What?

  “Good thing there are no cops around,” Max said as he slammed the passenger door. “It’ll just look like Katcher forgot to put on the parking brake.”

  I glanced at the busted-up fence. “Who will pay for the damage?”

  “Insurance! Insurance pays for everything. You gotta have it or you can’t drive. Grown-ups have a jillion rules like that. Nuts, I know.”

  “Oh.” I was too relieved to say anything else.

  “Anyway, let’s get out of the heat.” Max grabbed my arm and led me away from the car to a little clump of trees on the opposite side of the park. It was a lot cooler in the shade. I hadn’t realized how sweaty I was. “How are the little buggers?” he asked.

  My hand shook as I held up the matchbox. I was still pretty messed up from the car thing. “They’re okay . . . I guess.” Some of them were still shouting, “Great Todd, save us!” I opened the box a bit and told them, “It’s all right. You’re safe now.”

  Max swiped the box out of my hand, and my gut twisted. Again. After all this, was he really going to take them from me again?

  “Uncle Max is glad you’re okay too,” he said to the matchbox. “How would you little buggers like to perform your circus at the county fair this weekend? You’ll be famous!”

  “NOOOOOO!” was the Toddlians’ unanimous answer, but Max didn’t seem to hear.

  He grinned. “Fabulous! I’m excited about it too.” A couple of the braver Toddlians tried to climb out of the box, but he flicked them back in and shoved the lid closed.

  “Uh,” I said, lifting a finger, “That would be an awesome plan, except . . . we didn’t exactly win the science competition. Duddy and Ernie did. Remember? So we didn’t qualify for the county fair,” I reminded him. “There’s no way we can go.”

  “There is a way.” Max narrowed his beady eyes. “We may not be part of the ‘official’ Dork Bowl or whatever, but there’s always a way to get what you want, if you want it bad enough. And I want my A and my Xbox.”

  “But we left the answer key in the car.” I pointed at the Bug.

  Max shrugged. “And we have to leave it there, or Katcher will know it was one of his students who broke in. I’ll just copy off you for the test, which I shoulda thought of in the first place. So there’s my A. And we’ll take the buggers to the fair and people can watch Flea Circus Redux for five bucks a pop, so there’s my Xbox.”

  “Noooooo!” came a muffled cry from the box.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Great Todd?” Lew
is climbed down onto my shoulder. “Please?”

  I swallowed hard. It was time to man up. Like it or not, the Toddlians were my responsibility, and I had to at least try to protect them. I took a long, deep breath.

  “No. That plan won’t work. The Toddlians aren’t circus performers; they’re tiny people with feelings, and they’re getting hurt, Max. It needs to stop.”

  Max glared at me. His unibrow met his nose. “What did you just say?”

  “It needs to stop. I’ll help you study for the test, but I need the Toddlians back.” I held out my shaking hand. “Now.”

  Max’s nostrils flared, and I braced myself for a beating. “C’mon,” I tried in desperation, “we can talk it over on the way to the skate park.”

  He leaned his head back and snorted. “The skate park? Are you kidding? Why would I ever take a loser like you to a place where the cool kids hang?” Max paused. “Dude, why do you think I wanted to partner with you?”

  I frowned. “Uh, because you thought I was cool that first day when I stood up to Mr. Katcher in science?”

  Maxed closed in on me and poked his finger between my eyes. “Not cool. Smart. When you rattled off all that junk about spontaneous whatever, I thought to myself, Max, that kid right there is your ticket to an A and an Xbox.”

  The fist in my gut twisted harder.

  “When I met Dodo Girl, then I knew for sure: the two of your brains would save my butt.” He put the matchbox in his shirt pocket and flexed his beefy biceps. “Only you didn’t help me. You just screwed everything up like the dweebs you are. So the least you can do is share your little buggers so I can make a couple of Benjamins.”

  My shoulders slumped. I felt like someone had stuck a straw in me and sucked everything out. I’d never thought I was smart or pretended to be. But for a few short days, I’d tasted what it felt like to be somebody, and I liked it. Now I knew that none of it had been real.

  “Great Todd?” Lewis whispered again. “I believe in you.”