Masterminds by Gordon Korman Read Free Book Online

me, and that’s more than I can say about a lot of the people who warn me against him.
    Or when I got in trouble for losing my dad’s favorite toilet snake, and I couldn’t watch TV for three months, Malik let me come over to his house to watch I Love Lucy , even though he hates I Love Lucy . He only punched me twice, and even those times were because I laughed tooloud at the funny parts.
    We seem really different, but the truth is, Malik and I have a ton in common. Neither of us has brothers or sisters, and our dads don’t work in the plastics factory, which is pretty rare for around here. We’re not ordinary size—Malik’s the biggest kid in town, and I’m small for my age. We both love hot dogs, although he can eat three to my one.
    The main similarity between Malik and me is we don’t love Serenity that much, and everybody else thinks it’s the best place on earth. Malik doesn’t hide the fact that, as soon as he’s old enough, he’s leaving. We all have to leave if we want to go to college—there’s no university in Serenity. But I assume what he means is that once he’s gone, he’s never coming back. Strange that a guy who relies on 24/7 room service from his mom is so anxious to get away. Maybe he expects Mrs. Bruder to come to NYC with him to cook his food and look after his laundry. She might even do it—she’s that kind of mother. He complains that she smothers him, but he also complains when the chip bowl gets low. That’s how their relationship works. She’s constantly nagging; he’s constantly yelling, yet they’re closer than close. There’s this word I heard once: codependent . I’m not sure if it comes under honesty,harmony, contentment, or a little of all three.
    I don’t say anything, but when moving day comes, I’m going to beg Malik to take me with him—to college and beyond. I don’t want to stay in this town forever, even though the outside world scares me. It’s just too different and unknown.
    Until that day, though, we’re stuck here, and we’re best friends, whether anyone believes it or not. He’s my partner for the Serenity Day project. We’re making amazing progress, and it’s probably going to go even faster once Malik starts helping. It was his idea to build a scale model of Serenity Park using Legos and the crate that the Bruders’ new pool table came in. I’ve been spending all my spare time in the park, mapping and measuring, to make sure we get it exactly right. Malik doesn’t get good grades, so most people don’t realize what a perfectionist he is. He understands all the schoolwork he gets out of doing. If he tried, he’d probably be the third-best student in town, after Amber and me.
    Then again, if Malik was a good student, what would he need me for?
    Yesterday, I’m in the park, measuring the display case for the Serenity Cup and hoping it matches the dimensions of the clear plastic Tic Tac container we’re usingfor our project when I spy Stanley Cole and his family. They’re picnicking on the lawn by Serenity Square—Stanley, his parents, his kid brother, and their dog, Ortiz. I watch from a distance, but they don’t notice me. They’re too wrapped up in each other. It kind of makes me uncomfortable. They laugh a lot, like everything’s hilarious to them. The dad drops a sandwich and the dog eats it. Hilarious! Stanley wipes out on an exposed tree root. Hilarious! The little kid buries his trucks in the sand, and then cries because he can’t find them. Hilarious! Even cleaning up after the dog is a fun family activity. What’s the matter with these people? I can’t understand why they seem to think that everything in the world has been put there for their amusement.
    I can just picture my father throwing a Frisbee, or giving me a piggyback ride. Or my mother picking up dog poop—and