Dodger for President by Jordan Sonnenblick Read Free Book Online

Amy might finish checking me out and go away before Lizzie came back out.
    No such luck. Amy turned away from me and knocked on the bathroom door.
    â€œIck ’er’a’ent!” Lizzie exclaimed.
    â€œWhat?” I asked.
    â€œIck ’er’a’ent!”
    Amy put one hand on her hip and used the other to poke me in the chest with her magnifying glass. “What in the world does that mean, Willie? Did you guys come up with some kind of dorky president code just so I wouldn’t be able to solve your campaign secrets? Come on, you can tell me—I’m your sister! What does ’ick ’er’a’ent! mean?”
    â€œI don’t know, I swear! Lizzie, are you okay? What does ’ick ’er’a’ent! mean?”
    The door burst open, and Lizzie was standing there with a fluorescent blue stain all around her mouth. When she opened her mouth to yell at me, I saw that her teeth and tongue were blue, too. “It’s permanent, you goofball!”
    I started to apologize and tell Lizzie that I didn’t think that particular brand of marker caused
permanent
stains, but Amy started talking first. “Well, jeepers, Lizzie, you could have just said so!”
    The next thing I knew, Lizzie was running out of the house.
    Amy was still standing next to me on the top of the landing. She blew a bubble, cracked it loudly, and said, “God! I hope when
I
meet the boy
I’m
going to marry,
I’m
not so obnoxious to
him
!”
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CHAPTER SEVEN
The Skater Walk and the
Secret Life of Craig Flynn
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    HALF AN HOUR LATER , Dodger and I were sitting glumly on the edge of my bed. I had called Lizzie’s house, but her mom said she didn’t want to talk. I couldn’t stand it. I knew I had to be careful about talking with Dodger because Amy was prowling around, so I blasted some music. Then my mom came up, knocked, came in, sat next to me, and asked me to turn it down. Before her magical adjustment, Mom would have given me a whole big lecture on the horrors of popular music, but now she just mussed my hair and said, “Arguing with agirl, then cranking up the tunes—my Willie is turning into a teenager!”
    After she walked out, Dodger started jumping around, saying, “My Willie is turning into a teenager! My Willie is turning into a teenager!” and laughing his head off. Boy, was he a riot. And had my mother actually used the phrase “cranking up the tunes”?
    Dodger said, “Whoa, little teenage dude! I have the BEST idea. I’ve been thinking—for the election, you know?—that you need a cooler walk. I mean, no offense, but you need a cool-kid stride, a manly strut. Buddy, you need a skater walk! Now would be the perfect time to get you one. And then when you go grooving your way up to the stage for your speech, everybody will know what I know—that Willie Ryan is the most awesome presidentialtype guy around!”
    â€œUh, Dodger? How do I get a new walk? I mean, I walk the way I walk. That’s just how I am.”
    â€œNah, that’s how you
think
you are. Listen, I once had this really weird gig on a ship, helping this Greek guy named Jason find a golden fleece, and—”
    â€œWhat the heck is a golden fleece?”
    â€œIt’s like a fur coat made of gold, but that’s not the point. The point is that I was sailing around for, like, a year. And when I got back onto land, my whole stride was totally different. For like a century after that, the Great Lasorda used to imitate my walk and call me his “little sailor monkey.”
    â€œOh, so all I have to do is sail around the world a few times, and then I’ll have a walk that even a genie with sparkly gold pants can feel free to laugh at?”
    â€œNo, that’s just how I did it. You don’t need a sailor walk anyway. And getting a skater walk should be a lot easier.”
    â€œAll