Practicing

                      swear I didn’t do it,” Tom Brown said.  His orange eyes were wide behind his dark sunglasses, his pale hands raised in innocent protest. But as usual, his platinum blonde hair was sticking up like the punk that he was.

His best friend Matthew Calamori glanced over at him as the five pals walked together down the hall. There was Troy Meecham with his near-doppelganger Randon Spade, both dark haired boys of fifteen. And Rick Deacon walked with them, two years younger with rusty brown hair and wolf-gray eyes. They were all going to the gym in their free time. It was a new school building and these facilities were nicer than in the last place, so they wanted to take full advantage of it.

Troy and Randon ignored him.

“Honestly, I swear it wasn’t me,” Tom said again, giving an earnest look to the space in front of him.

Rick rolled his eyes and waved at the chocolate skinned Louisiana boy, Robert, from his class who was studying with the twitchy pale guy from Seattle in the hallway. Robert waved back, smirking at Tom’s mockingly sober expression.

“What? Oh, that’s the first I’ve heard of it.” Tom blinked as if honestly surprised, setting a hand to his chest.

Matt smothered a laugh and Rick shook his head. They turned a corner. That jumpy redhead, Lee, darted away from them.

“Me? Don’t you think it’s possible that maybe I’m not the only one who would do that?” Tom stopped in the middle of the hall, setting his hands on his hips.

Randon pulled on his arm. “Come on. No one is going to believe that.”

Tom cast him a look. “Well, how about this one?” He lifted his chin with a serious expression. “Why always accuse me? It could be someone else, you know.”

“The problem is, it is almost always you who did it,” Matt said with a no-nonsense look.

Shrugging, Tom tilted his head and said, “What about this one: Please sir, it wasn’t me!”

Snorting, Rick lifted his eyebrows and he pushed through the swinging door that gave the appearance that the school was once a restaurant. “Why don’t you say it was the one-armed man that did it?”

Pointing at him, Tom nodded. “I’ll try that.”

There were already a few boys inside the gym playing a game at one of the hoops. Joshua Johnson was among them. The tall dark haired senior turned when he saw the fivesome.

“No, really, I didn’t do it,” Tom said, nodding to himself.

“Hey guys,” Joshua walked from the game. “What did Tom do this time?”

“Nothing,” Rick replied with a smirk, glancing back at Tom as he continued to attempt a serious expression. “He’s just practicing.”

Joshua peered at Tom. “Practicing what?”

“Looking innocent,” Matt said, grinning. He pointed at the other basketball hoop. “Are you playing full court? Or can we use the other half?”

Turning back to speak with his teammates for a moment, Joshua then said, “You can have the other half…unless you want to play us.”

He looked hopeful.

Matt glanced to his friends and then peered at the seniors with Joshua. Those boys were tall and somewhat scary. He then looked at Rick who always took such kind of dares, but even he cringed to say he’d rather not. As a thirteen-year-old, he was virtually half their size.

“We’ll just take our half,” Matt said and turned toward that hoop.

“Did anyone of you bring a ball?” Joshua asked, walking with them. Randon and Troy already headed to the equipment closet. “Because that closet is locked.”

“No problem.” Tom strolled after them. He immediately stuck his hand through the metal and unlatched it on the inside. The door swung open.

Randon plucked a ball from the collection then dribbled it to their half of the court.

“The coach better not see you do that!” one of the seniors called out. “If he knows you can break into his office—”

“They all know I can break into their office,” Tom cut him off with a snort and he lowered his glasses to get a good look at that senior without any real interest. “But why bother?”

That senior stared at him then stepped away. The senior had light wavy hair and a speckle of freckles. No one of consequence. His imps were just the run of mill kind.

Tom snorted again with a turn. He nodded to his friends. “Let’s play some ball.”

“Yeah!” Rick jumped in, all ready to go.

Takeout

“Hey, where’s Tom?” Matt rapped on the doorjamb before walking into the bedroom.

Rick looked up from his homework and shrugged. “I dunno. He said he was going to take a walk. Said he wanted to check out something.”

“Like what?” Matt sat on the edge of the desk.

With another shrug, Rick looked back down to his paper. “Who knows? Maybe he saw a joke shop on the way when we moved here.”

Immediately Tom dropped down through the ceiling, landing straight on his bed with a plop. In one hand were two Chinese take-out boxes. The other hand held Rick’s wallet.

“Score!”

Exhaling loudly, Rick stuck out his hand. “Hand it over. I’ve been looking for that.”

Tom tossed it onto the desk as he hopped off his bed. “Don’t be such a sour puss. Imagine me at Mr. Wong’s only to find the biggest bill you had was a twenty. I could barely get enough chicken chow

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 17.03.2010
ISBN: 978-3-7368-4025-6

Alle Rechte vorbehalten