Crisis Zero by Chris Rylander Read Free Book Online Page B

Dillon)
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  •       A colony of Venus flytraps that had evolved todevour small animals, and which Mr. Lepsing was training to eventually eat students (also courtesy of Dillon)
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  •       An earwax collection that he had molded into various members of early-00s-era boy bands (Dillon)
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  •       A giant box of all the chewed-up pens and pencils he’d confiscated from students over the years, which he was saving in order to clone his best students to create an army of hyperintelligent and obedient slaves (this is what most students believed—he was a bit of a freak about taking away writing implements if he saw you chewing on them—except the last part about cloning, which came from—you guessed it—Dillon)
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  •       A lobster man that he was secretly keeping just alive enough to have a never-ending supply of lobster to feed on (Dillon again, much to Danielle’s horror and gagging)
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  •       Seventeen twenty-three-year-old Whoppers from Burger King that he was using to grow an army of preservative-laced (and thus indestructible) super bacteria that would eventually incite theapocalypse (take a wild guess)
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  •       Special diet lunches and/or a stockpile of vitamins (another popular theory with the general student body, given that Mr. Lepsing was an unabashed health freak)
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  •       A stash of gold bars and other valuables that he’d recovered while treasure hunting across the US (Mr. Lepsing was a proud amateur treasure hunter, but Dillon was really the only one who believed this)
    Okay, so clearly most of the theories came from Dillon. But the point was, Mr. Lepsing definitely kept something locked inside that supply closet that he didn’t want any students to see or find. He kept the key on a chain around his neck, after all. Who does that? Answer: someone hiding something very valuable—or very sinister.
    2.   Gus Agriopoulas : eighth-grade student. He made the list primarily for being the sort of kid who would probably be first in line to sign on for a plot of total world domination. If our middle school voted on awards at the end of each year, like Most Likely to be Famous or Most Likely to Succeed, Gus Agriopoulaswould have definitely won for Most Likely to Become an Evil Villain Planning to Blow up the Sun. It wasn’t just that he was a bully; our school, like any other, had plenty of kids who were mean to other kids from time to time. It was the way Gus bullied kids that made him such a threat. He went after kids with reckless abandon—nothing was off-limits. Gus was the sort of kid who’d make fun of a kid whose parents had just died in car accident. In fact, he did that once when I was in third grade and he was in fourth. I wish I were exaggerating. One time, Gus lit a girl’s ponytail on fire at recess. And the thing was, he almost always got away with it. He was the best athlete at every sport, he got straight As, his dad was one of the best orthopedic surgeons in the world, and all of these things generally gave Gus a free pass. No one wanted to believe that Mr. Small Town Superstar Rich Kid could be such a completely evil psychopathic jerk. That, and if Gus got expelled or sent away to juvie or something, the hopes for our town ever winning the state high school football championship would have been dashed. And that stuff is pretty important to people from small towns with nothing else to worry about.
    3.   Ophelia Perkins : fifth-grade student. She had made the list by being cousins with Jake Tyson-Gulley, and so was also Medlock’s niece. That was pretty strong evidence for sure. But at the same time, it was the only reason she made the list. Nothing