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direction. Her loose skin folds fluttered like a furry bathrobe.
    "Was it something I said?" I hustled after her.
    Luz broke into that hopping run that squirrels favor. I poured on the steam.
    Suddenly, a teacher appeared beyond her. "No running here!" he cried.
    Luz skidded to a stop and glanced back at me. Pinned between us, she took the high road—right up the wall.
    But she'd forgotten about my serious climbing skills. In this business, it pays to be a lizard.
    I scrambled up the wall in pursuit. When I reached the roof, Luz was already hop-running away. I took off, pumping my legs like a cancan dancer on a bathroom run.
    Within a few strides, I was gaining. The edge of the building lay just ahead.
    Luz looked back, panic flaring in her eyes.
    I reached out my arms, almost close enough to grab her.
    Luz was only steps from the drop-off. She had nowhere to go....

    Until she stepped into space, spread her arms and legs, and sailed away.
    Turns out I'd forgotten something, too: Flying squirrels can fly.
    With the grace of a prima ballerina, Luz landed on the next building's roof.
    Unfortunately, geckos can't glide.
    I windmilled off the edge.
    "Yaaaah!"
    Down I plummeted like a cast-iron kite—
krunk!
—right into the krangleberry bushes.
    I lay there for a minute. Nothing seemed broken, so I rose and picked my way out of the shrubbery.
    A slow
clap-clap-clap
greeted me.
    Two beefy iguanas stood nearby. One had a squinchy left eye; the other had a nose ring. Neither was about to win any beauty contests. They looked like trouble, and they smelled like algae.
    Squinchy Eye stopped his applause. "Lovely jump," he said, "but you didn't stick the landing, mate. I'd give it a seven-point-five."
    "Oy'd say free-point-two," said Nose Ring. And his glower made it clear he was being generous.
    I brushed the leaves off my coat. "Thanks for the warm fuzzies," I said. "See you gents later."
    But I hadn't taken two steps before Nose Ring blocked my way.
    "Not so fast," he growled.
    "I know you're not, but what am I?" I said.
    "Unh?"
    The hefty reptile knew he'd been insulted, but he couldn't quite figure out how. He grabbed the front of my coat in a hamlike fist and hoisted me off the ground, easy as a high schooler popping a zit.
    "Listen up, Gecko," said Squinchy Eye. "We don't like you. It ain't personal, but we don't like you."
    "Aw, that breaks my heart," I said. "And just when I was about to give you a best-friends-forever bracelet."
    Nose Ring raised a hand the size of a three-ring binder and slapped my head once, twice, three times. Church bells chimed in my ears.
    "'E said,
listen up,
" said the iguana.
    Squinchy Eye bent down until his squinchy eye was only inches from mine. His breath smelled funkier than the morning after the fish tank office party.
    "We got a message for you, bright boy," he said.
    "Send an e-mail next ti—" I stopped at the sight of Nose Ring's raised hand.
    "Get outta town, mate," said Squinchy Eye. "Emerson Hicky don't want you around no more."
    I gulped. "I don't want Emerson Hicky, either," I said. "But until I graduate from sixth grade, I'm stuck here."
    "Wrong answer," said Nose Ring. He hoisted
me over his head, planted a meaty paw in my gut, and shot-putted me back into the bushes.
    Cha-krunk!
    "Sweet," said Squinchy Eye. "I'd give it a nine-point-seven."
    "'Leven-point-two," grunted the other iguana.
    "It only goes up to ten." Squinchy Eye peered down at me through the shrubbery. "Lay off the case, Gecko. Or we'll have to lay you out."
    I didn't have any snappy answers for that one. Instead, I felt my lumps and bruises, and listened to their footsteps retreat.
    Goons giving me heat? That meant I was getting close to something big.
    Only question was, would I find it before something big came down on me?

11. Another Day, Another Mauler
    The stretch between lunch and recess didn't last longer than the day before summer vacation, Dad's "when I was a boy" lectures, or the Hundred