Corrupted by Lisa Scottoline Read Free Book Online Page B

hit you or something?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou can tell me. I won’t even tell your dad, if you don’t want me to.”
    â€œYou know, Richie starts calling me Bootylicious and then everybody joins in, that’s what it’s like.” Jason shrugged.
    â€œIsn’t there a monitor in the cafeteria? Or somebody who can stop it?”
    â€œYes, but she doesn’t see.” Jason started fiddling with the figurine again. “The cool thing about Legos is that you can do things with them, like you can make them shoot the catapult, and they joust, and there’s even a dragon minifig.”
    â€œWhat’s a minifig?”
    â€œThis is a minifig.” Jason brightened, holding up the figurine. “This is King Leo, it’s a new theme they have, Knights’ Kingdom. It’s, like, a big war, and King Leo is a good king and they’re lion knights.”
    â€œCool,” Bennie said, willing to take the conversational detour only because Jason brightened again.
    â€œThe way it works is the knights have to protect the castle against Cedric the Bull. And they have to fight for Queen Leonora and Princess Storm, even though Princess Storm is a warrior and she fights, but not as much as King Leo or Richard the Strong.” Jason picked up a small plastic figure with a blue helmet. “This minifig is Richard the Strong. He helps King Leo defend the castle and he’s really a good guy. Cedric the Bull is the worst, and they have a story, that’s what I like about it, too.”
    â€œWhat’s the story?”
    â€œWell, Cedric is, like, the son of a king, but he got cheated out of his land because there were, like, thirteen sons, and he is really, like, angry about it, and that’s why he wants the land that belongs to King Leo.”
    Bennie thought it sounded like King Lear, but maybe that was reading too much into plastic toys.
    â€œAnd Cedric has a guy who helps him named Weasel, who knows all about traps, and Gilbert the Bad.”
    â€œI’m guessing Gilbert the Bad is bad.”
    â€œDuh, right?” Jason rolled his eyes. “But Gilbert the Bad is really smart, and Boris, too, those are the bad guys. Like a lot of people think Legos are just for little kids, but they’re really not. The coolest is Richard the Strong.” Jason wiggled the figure. “He figures things out, protects the Queen and the Princess. He, like, helps . He’s just, like a good guy but he’s not the main guy, he’s like strong. He like, stands up for justice.”
    â€œMaybe he’ll be a lawyer someday.”
    â€œHa!” Jason giggled, an adorably carefree sound, incongruous in the grim surroundings. “He’s already better than a lawyer.”
    â€œNothing’s better than a lawyer.”
    â€œWhat? No way, he’s, like, awesome ! Like if anybody does or says anything bad about Queen Leonora or Princess Storm, he’ll fight them!” Suddenly Jason’s happiness evaporated.
    â€œWhat, Jason? What’s going on?”
    â€œI guess that’s, kind of, what was different, in the cafeteria.” Jason’s eyes filmed, but he kept his gaze on the toy. “I was walking by with my tray, and Richie started saying bad things about … my mom .”
    â€œLike what?” Bennie felt a pang. Her mother had been depressed, and as a child, Bennie remembered kids teasing her, the tall girl with the crazy mother.
    â€œRichie said my mom was as big as a house , and that she was fat, then he told this joke, ‘how fat is your momma,’ ‘when she sits around the house, she sits around the house.’”
    â€œThat’s not funny.” Bennie was beginning to think that the problem with her practicing juvenile law wasn’t the expertise, but the emotionality.
    â€œThen he said, that’s why my mom … died , that she got a heart attack because she was a big, fat pig