The Magnificent 12 by Michael Grant Read Free Book Online Page A

room for the redhead, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t the kind of girl you easily overlooked.
    â€œSo these are just minions,” Camaro muttered, and nodded knowingly. Minions were like underbullies. There might be a lot of them, but if old James Bond movies, Bruce Willis movies, and Star Wars movies had taught her anything, it was that minions are easily disposed of.
    She sidled up to Tony Pooch, who flinched at her approach. “Bully emergency. Keep it quiet. Spread the word.”
    She did the same with Ed Lafrontiere, the disgraced Twilight fans’ bully, who was now hoping for a new assignment. And Matthew Morgan, who dealt with nerds and dorks.
    Within seconds the word had gone out to all twelve official bullies—and Disgraced Ed. They gathered around Camaro and the golem.
    â€œListen up,” Camaro said. “I am declaring this an official bully emergency. You are all bound by the oath you took to work together whenever there’s a threat to our thing.”
    â€œIs it this guy? Mack?” the skater/punk bully demanded, jerking a thumb at the golem, who was at that moment pulling a small twig out of his nose.
    â€œNo, the gol— I mean, Mack, is cool. He’s on our side. In fact, he’s the one in danger.”
    â€œIn danger?” Popular Mean Girls bully Jennifer Schwarz asked. “Why should we care?”
    Camaro thumped her on the head for that and explained, “You want someone else bullying our kids? Some outsiders who aren’t even part of our thing? Think before you say something stupid.”
    â€œNo way,” Ed said, anxious for any chance to prove himself. “No way some outside bullies bully our victims.”
    â€œWe call them clients, not victims,” Camaro corrected him patiently. “Now, listen up. You see those short, stocky dudes with the long skinny fingers and the sharp teeth trying to pass themselves off as kids?”
    The bullies all looked.
    â€œNow, do you see the skinny ones with kind of buggy heads dressed in raincoats and evening dresses?”
    Most of them didn’t know what an evening dress was—and no surprise; it’s a totally inappropriate clothing choice for a chaperone—but they were able to spot the suspicious ones nevertheless.
    â€œThere are too many for us to take them on all at once. We need to peel them off, a few at a time,” Camaro said. She tilted her head and looked at the golem. Then back at the treasonous Tong Elves and the Skirrit. No, she didn’t know that was what they were, but she looked at them anyway and saw again that they were totally fixated on the golem.
    â€œWe use the gol—er, Mack—as bait,” Camaro said. She beckoned the golem and whispered in his ear. “I want you to walk toward the boys’ room. Then, at the last minute, just as you reach the bathroom, you’ll be close to the outside door, right?”
    The golem had no idea if this was right. So he said, “Right.”
    â€œWhen you get there, do something to attract attention. Then run outside real quick!”
    Camaro did not specify exactly what the golem should do to attract attention, and this would prove to be a mistake. Because the golem followed her instructions perfectly. He walked toward the boys’ room. And there, just before he would have to go in, he attracted attention by sticking his tongue out.
    Fourteen feet.
    Golem bodies are capable of amazing things, what with basically being mud thinly disguised to look like skin and hair and clothing and so on.
    So the golem didn’t really have a tongue like normal people; he had as much tongue as he wanted to have. In fact he could turn much of his body into tongue, and that’s what he did: first he stuck out his tongue, and then with both hands he pulled more and more tongue out until it was sort of like a limp fire hose just piling up in a coil on the floor as his body got smaller and smaller