EllRay Jakes and the Beanstalk by Sally Warner Read Free Book Online

time, trying not to choke on our nutrition. It is one of those cool-warm mornings when the sun is shining but the wind is blowing, and everything is great.
    They should make more days like this, in my opinion!
    For us boys, this kind of weather is perfect for lots of things.
You can swing from the monkey bars, or just hang there and pretend you are an underwater deep-sea diver about to go eye-to-eye with a giant squid.
You can run around the playground until your legs get numb, and you have to stop and grab your side to catch your breath. But in a good way.
You can play kickball, or, if the good balls are all taken, you can pretend your foot has superpowers as you kick a caved-in ball against the fence and imagine the cheering crowd.
    That’s what Corey and I are doing right now. “BLAM-O!” Corey shouts, sinking his sneaker into a crumpled, faded red kickball.
    â€œTake
that
,” I say, blasting another one with the side of my foot.
    Our kickballs hit the fence with splats and drop to the pavement, and we scoop them up so we can do it again. It’s not as much fun with two people as it would be if there were three, but is Kevin playing with us?
Oh, no.
He is over by the picnic tables with Jared and Stanley.
    Kevin, Jared, and Stanley are crouching, almost squatting, on the concrete slab. It looks like they are either pretending to skate or pretending to be airplanes, like Alfie said to me that time.
    They look kinda dumb, in my opinion—not that kicking squashy balls against a fence takes a whole lot of brains. I’m not gonna lie.
    â€œHey,” Jared yells, catching me watching them. “Come here! I wanna tell you guys something.”
    â€œHow much he hates us, probably,” Corey mutters, turning his back on Jared, Stanley, and Kevin, and giving his floppy kickball another slam against the clattering chain-link fence.
    â€œYeah,” I agree, but I take another peek at the picnic table area. Now Kevin is waving us over there, too. “Maybe we should go,” I say to Corey, who is now walking around with the kickball draped over his head, arms out in front of him like he’s Frankenstein. “Kevin wants us, too.”
    â€œOkay, but just wait,” Corey warns, tossing off his kickball hat and catching it with one hand. “Kevin will say something mean, just so Jared will think he’s so tough and everything.”
    â€œHe won’t,” I say, picking up my kickball as we get ready for the long walk to the picnic tables. “He might just stand there and say nothing
after
Jared says something mean to us. Or Stanley does. But I don’t think Kevin has completely turned on us yet.”
    â€œHey,” Jared says when we get there.
    He leaves out the “loser” this time, but I can still hear it.
    â€œHi, guys,” Kevin says, smiling like nothing is wrong. As if he just happened to be hanging out with Jared and Stanley, not with us. He bends his knees, then jumps three inches off the concrete slab onto the grass like he’s performing a skate trick on an invisible board.
    â€œYou think that’s good? Watch
this
,” Stanley says to Kevin, glaring at him through smudged glasses. I can tell he’s mad because he’s not Jared’s only friend anymore. Stanley climbs up onto the picnic table bench, crouches, then springs onto the slab, arms out and legs bent, like he just landed a perfect 360-flip or something.
    Virtual skating!
    â€œAwesome,” Corey says, but I can tell he’s trying not to laugh—and so can Kevin, probably. Kevin shrugs and turns away.
    Jared sees all this, and he scowls. He grabs my sleeve and hauls me in close to him. “I barely even
know
Kevin and he’s hanging out with me and not you,” he whispers. “Loser,” he finishes, pushing me away. I can smell peanut butter on his breath.

    And just as the buzzer sounds, the idea comes to me.
Jared
should have chosen “Jack