Ghost of Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen Read Free Book Online

they’re even more ticked at us.”
    “If they bother either of you, report it to me or one of your teachers.”
    “After we’ve been beat up,” Cole said. “Detention won’t change that.”
    “Those five will get suspended if this happens again.”
    “I doubt that,” Cole said. “They know there aren’t real consequences, otherwise they wouldn’t be bullies.” Cole bit back his anger. “Every day kids are getting hassled and nobody sees it or does anything about it.”
    “Each person has to do his part,” Ms. Kennedy said. “It was good that you didn’t fight back yesterday.”
    “You don’t get it, do you?” Cole said angrily. “This isn’t about us not fighting back. When I was a bully, the more somebody refused to fight, the more I picked on him. Don’t you see, I’m screwed no matter what I do? If I use my fists, I go to jail. If we do nothing, we get used as punching bags.”
    “Use your brains,” Ms. Kennedy said curtly.
    “We d-d-did that,” Peter exclaimed. “We used the cell phone, and you didn’t like that.”
    Ms. Kennedy reached across her desk and gathered papers into her hands. “There’s no easy answer. You two need to get to class now.”
    After school, Cole found Peter near the bulldog statue. With school back in session, fresh gang symbols appeared each morning on the crumbling pedestal.
    “What do you want to do if we’re not going to drop bowling balls?” Peter asked.
    “Maybe we can look for a place to be invisible.”
    “All right,” Peter said. “Let’s go someplace really quiet.”
    Ten minutes later, they were still looking for a spot when they heard wild swearing and shouting. Ahead, they spotted two boys hassling the old homeless man from the abandoned building. One boy had tipped over his cart as the other taunted him.
    At first the grizzled man brandished his whittling knife each time one of the tormentors ventured near, but soon he knelt and cowered, pulling the dirty white blanket tightly around his shoulders. Cole remembered cowering the same way when his father had whipped him with a belt. As Peter and Cole watched, one of the boys grabbed the man’s blanket. The bum clung to it desperately, but the boy yanked it away, laughing.
    “Knock it off!” Cole shouted, breaking into a run.
    At that moment, a police car rolled into view, lights flashing. The two boys took off running. The homeless man picked up his blanket and retreated to his tipped-over cart, glaring wildly and brandishing his knife at the world.
    The two police officers climbed from their car and drew their pistols as they approached the crazed man. Slowly they circled him, talking patiently and holding out their hands for the knife. Finally one officer grabbed the old tramp from behind and wrestled the knife from his hand. They handcuffed him.
    Cole ran up. “Officer, it wasn’t that guy’s fault.”
    “And who are you?”
    “I’m Cole Matthews. Two boys were hassling the old guy. They tipped over his cart and grabbed his blanket. He was just protecting himself.”
    The bum eyed Cole with quiet blue eyes.
    “Do you know the boys who did it?” the officer asked.
    Cole shook his head. “I didn’t recognize them.”
    “No matter what, this guy can’t be waving a knife at people,” said the second officer.
    Peter joined Cole beside the police car. “He just carves with it,” Peter said. “We saw him whittling.”
    “We still have to take him in.”
    The patrol car drove off with the bum in handcuffs. His belongings were scattered on the ground: worn pieces of clothing, an old bowling trophy, a hand mirror, some broken toys, a bundle of clothes hangers, and ordinary trash as if the old guy was cleaning up the streets.
    “Let’s put it all back in the cart and push it over to the building where he lives,” Cole said. “We’ll leave it inside.”
    Quickly they picked up the scattered junk. They were almost finished when Peter called, “Hey, look at this!”
    “What you