Return of the Jed by Scott Craven Read Free Book Online

declare?” he said.
    “I had no—”
    “You do not have to declare clothes or toothpaste. You do not have to declare your happiness at visiting the most amazing country on Earth. You do not even have to declare your best friend is a smart-ass. But you know what you do have to declare?”
    “I—”
    “Something that can bring any number of germs and bacteria. Something that is a ticking time bomb of infection.”
    “But—”
    “Like a dog. You did not think a dog is something to declare? Were you trying to sneak it in, to use it to bring down our canine population? Are you a bioterrorist or something?”
    “He’s no—”
    “Step out of the van,” Officer Calderon said, opening the door. “Now. You will show me this dog.”
    I scooted to the right and leaned away from the door, should Officer Calderon try to grab me.
    “Dad, what’s going on?” I said, but Dad was already out the driver’s side and walking around the back of the van.
    Luke leaned forward and whispered, “I told you the stick up his butt had a stick up its butt.”
    “ Señor , please, out of the vehicle,” I heard Officer Calderon say, feeling his hand on my shoulder.
    “Go, it will be all right,” Luke said. “They’re not allowed to dognap anything they want to.”

Chapter Eight
     

     
     
    It wasn’t so much the concrete floor or stifling heat that reminded me of the locker room at Pine Hollow Middle School, the scene of one of my most humiliating experiences less than a year ago. It was the smell.
    “Luke, does this room bring back any memories?” I asked, squirming in one of the dozens of plastic molded chairs bolted to metal racks that shook every time you moved.
    “Not really,” Luke said. “This place is pretty much one of a kind, if you ask me.”
    “Don’t think of the room itself,” I said, leaning closer to Luke, my shifting weight jolting the other seven chairs sharing this particular rack. “The smell.”
    Luke tilted his head back and sniffed, then closed his eyes.
    “Ah yes, the aroma reminds me of the only place on this Earth only slightly worse than this one,” he said. “All that’s missing are half-naked guys wielding towels as weapons.” He opened his eyes. “The delicate scent of the locker room, a fresh vintage, just last year. I know it well.”
    I closed my eyes as well, and those memories of towel-wielding bullies came back.
    Most people think “pound of flesh” is nothing more than a Shakespearean saying. But that’s exactly what was taken from me early in seventh-grade. When wet towels take on undead skin, towels win, and pretty handily. Darn their absorbency!
    Too many bad thoughts. I opened my eyes and focused on where we were and why.
    Officer Calderon had led us to this depressing place, which he called Mexico’s waiting room. It was the customs office. Well, at least somewhere beyond the olive-green door set in the middle of a brick wall hidden under who knows how many coats of beige paint. Drips of paint, frozen in time, clung to some bricks.
    Dad asked why we were being detained, and Officer Calderon said something about smuggling in a chupacabra, and violating rules as they pertained to beasts once thought mythological. He refused to say anything else and ordered us to take a seat.
    Luke, Dad, and I were among thirty or so people in the waiting room. Every now and then the door swung open with a groan, revealing a customs agent holding a clipboard. A name was announced, people stood and accompanied the officer out of the room. I imagined a line of holding cells filled with people apologizing for trying to sneak fruits, vegetables, and an array of healthy snacks into the country.
    If Disneyland was the Happiest Place on Earth, this was the anti-Disneyland, the most miserable place on Earth. I expected to see posters of Mr. Toad’s Agonizing Ride, or for the Life-Doesn’t-Matterhorn and its Plunging-Into-the-Depths-of-Depression Bobsleds.
    It anyone were tweeting here, the last