Read The Bubble Wrap Boy for Free Online

minutes ago.”
    “And is that how long it takes sound to bypass your nose and reach your brain?”
    He batted the insult away. “You listen through your ears, not your nose, numbnut.”
    I hated it when my insults fell flat, especially as his never did.
    Irritated, I stood and walked away. Sinus breathed heavily as he scampered to catch up.
    “Where are you going?” he asked, not wanting to miss the next gripping installment of
Charlie Has a Death Wish
.
    “Where do you think?” I muttered. “To see your brother.”

Y ou had to look hard to find something positive about Bunion Sedgley’s appearance.
    He was no fashion model. In fact, it looked like he’d been tortured with the biggest ugly stick known to man.
    The only positive I’d ever found to his unique look was that he’d never get knocked over by any kind of wind, gale, hurricane, or tropical storm. His feet were way too long to ever let that happen. They were the human equivalent of tree roots.
    Shoes had been specially made for him since he was seven years old; you could’ve strapped a couple of kayaks to his feet and he still wouldn’t have been able to wiggle his big toes comfortably.
    He was no good at things like soccer, obviously—each shoe would’ve needed a hundred and fifty cleats to grip the turf—but weirdly, I could never remember him ever doing
the walk
at school. You didn’t want to be on the end of it if he was doing the kicking. He’d shear your leg clean off.
    Just like Sinus, if his physical freakishness bothered him, it never showed. In fact, there was a real arrogance about him.
    He had a habit of rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, swaying with such range that I always felt seasick after two minutes in his company. He knew this and used it like a weapon, especially once he heard I was after something.
    “Of course you can have the board…” He grinned slimily.
    I didn’t buy into his kindness and wondered what might be wrong with the board. Was it actually fifty feet long to accommodate his delicate pinkie toes?
    “…but it’ll cost you.”
    “I’ve already told you, Bunion, I haven’t got any cash.”
    He gasped theatrically. “I’m not talking about money. What do you think I am? An animal?”
    He circled me in three steps. “No, what I’m talking about is rent. Every week you have the board, you can pay me in food from your dad’s place. I’ve always been very partial to his prawn chow mein. Four times a week should cover it.”
    “Four times a week? Do you know how much prawns cost?”
    “Well, they’re hardly king-sized, are they? The ones your dad serves up are more like shrimp.”
    “Once a week.”
    “Three times,” he insisted.
    “Twice, and I’ll throw in prawn crackers.”
    “And a pickled egg!” He was salivating now.
    “Deal,” I groaned.
    “Been a pleasure,” he said, beaming, and strode off to the shed, returning twenty minutes later with a skateboard-shaped cobweb.
    “Here you go.” He forced it into my hands like it was cow dung. “Never liked it, anyway. Sucker’s game.”
    “Thanks,” I said, though I didn’t mean it. What on earth was I going to do with this? It was in worse shape than the steel rhino.
    “I’ll expect first payment on Thursday, six-thirty. Don’t be late.”
    “Whatever,” I mumbled, and made a pledge to sprinkle his food with seasoning sourced from each of my ears.
    My bad mood didn’t last long, though. Once I’d sneaked the board in past Mom and chiseled away at the years of cobwebs and dust, it didn’t look too bad. It wasn’t a four-wheeled equivalent of the trike, anyway.
    It was plain black on the top, with a ghoulish devil laughing inanely underneath. There wasn’t a scratch on the design, more evidence of its criminal lack of use.
    The only problem was the wheels. They were luminous red—exactly what I needed to stand out when whipping up and down the half-pipe—but they were so rusted and underused that they wouldn’t