Little Chicago by Adam Rapp Read Free Book Online

okay.
    You look a little faint.
    I’m fine, I say.
    Is everything okay at home?
    Yes.
    Let’s concentrate a little better in class, okay?
    I say, Okay.
    Very good then, he says. I have to set up the film projector for my next class.
    He gets up and crosses to the back of the room.
    I want to move but I feel stuck again.
    You better get to your next period, Mr. Prisby says, his back to me now.
    Okay, I say.
    I have to hit myself in the thigh to get my legs to move.
    While he’s setting up the film projector I reach into Dave the See-Through Fake Human’s mouth and take out his tongue.
    I don’t know why I do this. I have nothing against Mr. Prisby or Dave the See-Through Fake Human either. My hand just sort of does it on its own.
    The tongue feels cold and useless in my palm.
    I am tempted to take a kidney or a lung too, but that would be too obvious, so I put the tongue in my pocket and leave.
    In Gym we play dodgeball.
    Like usual the sides get split up unevenly.
    Steve Degerald and Evan Keefler are on the same team. I am not on that team and this means pain.
    Steve Degerald shaves his head and pretends he is in the Marines. He’ll sometimes shout Semper Fi! for no reason. Once he did it in Language Arts in the middle of an SRA test. Semper Fi! he shouted and threw his fists in the air. Miss Cosgrove looked up but nothing happened.
    Last month he walked up to me in the hall and said, I’m gonna stab you someday, Brown.
    I said, Why?
    Cause you’re weaker than a girl and that makes you a toad. All toads need to be eliminated.
    I have never done anything to deserve this but that’s the way it is with Steve Degerald.
    He is such a superior athlete that he can catch a dodgeball with one hand and throw it back in the same motion. Sometimes he throws it so hard it makes the bleachers echo. He’s got huge arms and hair on his testicles.
    I know this word cause Mr. Prisby taught it to us one day in Life Science.
    These are Dave’s testicles, he said, pointing to the nut area. Testicles are the male reproductive organs, he continued. They’re also known as testes.
    There are only a couple of kids in the sixth grade who have hair on their testicles and Steve Degerald is one of them.
    Evan Keefler’s got hair on his testicles, too, but it’s nothing to brag about. It looks more like mustache hair than testicle hair. It’s so straight I imagine him styling it with a comb.
    The trick to dodgeball is you have to get the ball so you can throw it and pummel the other team.
    I wanna see some good play out there today, boys! Coach Corcoran says while setting the balls on the midcourt line. Strategy and team play!
    He smiles and his teeth are sharp and gray.
    Before the game starts all players on each side must have one part of their body touching the bleacher wall. This is a rule that is enforced at all costs. If Coach Corcoran catches you cheating there are pushups and the Monkey Drill. The Monkey Drill is where you run back and forth and touch all the lines on the basketball court.
    I don’t wanna see any monkeys out there, he warns.
    Then he blows the whistle and everyone goes for the five balls in the middle. I never go for them cause you usually get thoroughly pummeled at close range by Steve Degerald or Evan Keefler. Today I make an extra-special effort not to go for the balls cause I don’t have any gym shoes and it’s difficult to run and stop when you’re in your socks.
    Normally I would fake it by running a few steps and then I’d back up and cling to the bleacher wall.
    Eric Duggan squeezes in next to me and says, I have some interesting information regarding the Abominable Snowman.
    Eric Duggan has recently become my good friend. This happened cause I helped him find his glasses after they got knocked off when we were playing flag football.
    I picked them up out of the dirt just before they got stomped.
    When I handed them to him he said, I owe you one,