Read The Amazing Flight of Darius Frobisher for Free Online Page A

key!”
    The television shows Aunt Inga watched only reinforced her belief that people were, by and large, rotten creatures. She looked back at Darius.
    “You see how the world is? What’s the point of trying to do any good? What do I get for all my pains? I take you in, and here you are worried about getting letters from some old woman. Always thinking of yourself, Mr. Snootypants.”
    Darius decided that if he ever got to be in charge, grown-ups would have to take a test to prove that they liked kids before they would be allowed to take care of them. Only nice people would raise children.
    Aunt Inga would have failed the test and had her license denied.
    Darius went into the kitchen to escape the lecture. But AuntInga only raised her voice. “Fine!” she shouted. “Go in there and eat my food, too. I knew that would happen. Why don’t you go outside and do something? You’ll never make anything of yourself sitting around here.”
    For once, Darius thought Aunt Inga was making sense. Glad for an excuse to get away from her, he slipped out the back door. Darius heard some whooping and shouting. He rounded the corner of the house just in time to see Anthony riding by furiously on his bicycle. In the middle of the street, directly in front of Aunt Inga’s, was a ramp made of a sheet of plywood, one end propped up on some milk crates.
    Anthony pedaled up the ramp at top speed. “Yee-haaaaah!” he yelled. The wheels spun wildly as the bike left the ramp and flew through the air. The bicycle landed,
thump, thump
, and Anthony careened down the street, then circled back for another try. Even though he had the very strong feeling that Anthony was showing off just to taunt him, Darius couldn’t help but watch. He longed for a bike of his own—one that he could ride, not that rusty wreck he’d found in the basement.
    “Too bad you don’t have a bike,” Anthony chortled as he circled around again. “If you did, you could fly like me. But maybe it’s just as well. You’d never be as good as I am.”
    Darius watched the older boy pop wheelies and weave up and down the street. Darius was desperate to ride. Finally, he got up enough courage to speak.
    “Anthony, can I ride your bike?”
    “No,” the boy replied, “I’m putting it away now and going inside. If you want, you can watch TV with me. But you can’t talk when the show’s on.”
    “What show are you going to watch?” Darius asked.
    “I don’t know,” Anthony answered, “Whatever’s on.”
    Darius didn’t want to watch television. But he was bored out of his mind, and he didn’t want to go back to Aunt Inga’s house.
    Anthony’s house was bigger than Aunt Inga’s, although most of the time the family didn’t need the extra space. Mr. Gritbun worked on top-secret computer projects and only came home once every three months for a shower and breakfast. During the school year, Anthony was at military school.
    You may be wondering why the Gritbuns sent their son away to school.
    Anthony Gritbun was, to put it mildly, a handful. At home, he rarely did what he was told and often did exactly what he was told
not
to do. I suppose that is one reason his parents sent him away. The other reason was this: Anthony’s father had gone to Crapper Military Academy, and he wanted his son to go there, too.
    “Look at me,” Mr. Gritbun had said one day during breakfast, just before he disappeared for another three months. “I turned out all right. A few years at Crapper will do wonders for our boy.”
    Anthony had spent the past nine months at Crapper, but so far it was hard to tell just what wonders the school had worked on him.
    Anthony led Darius into his bedroom and turned on the television. It was a stupid movie about a policeman who lost his job and fell in love with a woman who was going to rob a bankbecause she needed money for her child who had to have an operation. There was much more kissing than there needed to be, and Darius was bored. Every time