Free The Bully Book by Eric Kahn Gale Page B

Has stacks of paper everywhere. Never shows anything to me, though.” She did that weird laugh again. “Have you met Clarence? I can call him up if you like, but I don’t think he’ll come. Never usually leaves the basement till dinnertime.”
    â€œNo, no, that’s okay,” I said. I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to meet Clarence, not even under a fake name. What if he recognized me?
    Still, I knew I needed to get into that basement. He was the author of The Bully Book, all right. His mother had practically told me so: He’s writing in notebooks all the time, has stacks of papers everywhere. Probably working on more Bully Books, maybe a high-school edition. He must have a copy of The Book stashed down there. I just needed a way to get in when no one’s around.
    As Mrs. Corbinder and I talked, I noticed the security system. Alarms and sensors everywhere. There’d be no way to break in during the day when the house was empty, or the middle of the night.
    I had prepared for this. If you can’t sneak in when no one’s home, you’ve got to do it when they’re distracted. And I had found the perfect excuse when I was looking into Clarence’s personal information.
    â€œI hear that Clarence’s 16th birthday is coming up,” I said.
    Mrs. Corbinder passed the cocoa. “We’re having a party for him here at the house.”
    Bingo.
    â€œThat’s great,” I said. “I love birthday parties.”
    â€œWell then, uh …” Mrs. Corbinder was trapped; no mother can turn down an 11-year-old boy inviting himself to a party.
    â€œYou should come,” she said with a forced smile.
    â€œReally?” I said. “Oh man—that would be great!”
    â€œOf course, Colin. It’ll be wonderful to have you. The more the merrier.”
    And so I’ve got my date. In exactly 23 days, I’ll be attending Clarence Corbinder’s birthday party, the author of The Bully Book. And during all the distraction of the party, I’m sneaking into his basement and ending this thing, once and for all.

Journal #26
    Today in English class, Whitner had us learn about public speaking. He put a bunch of topics into a hat and then made us stand in front of the class, pick one out, and talk about it for 60 seconds.
    We had to make the speech up on the spot.
    Ruth McNealy went first and I swear she was nearly in tears. Her topic was “What would the world be like if cars could fly?”
    I don’t know what Whitner was thinking.
    For 60 seconds she coughed and stalled and tried to think of something to say other than she’d get to school a lot faster. The same went for Ashley Dickenson when she had to talk about “What if potato chips were good for you?” and Nick Drumme when he was told to describe a world where “Gravity is reversed.”
    â€œCome on, guys,” Whitner said, “this is supposed to be fun. Just loosen up and talk.” Easy for him to say; when you’re the teacher, no one makes fun of you when you say something stupid. At least not to your face.
    â€œEric Haskins.” Whitner called my name. “You’re next, buddy.”
    â€œGet up there, buddy.” Jason Crazypants whispered to me. Adrian Noble chuckled.
    I just had to get through this. I’d say my stupid speech, they’d all laugh at me, and I’d get on with my quiet life.
    Whitner held the hat and I silently cursed him for making me do this. I read my topic.
    â€œWhat if people didn’t have any thumbs?”
    Whitner started his stopwatch. I looked at the class; they’d make fun of me no matter what I said, so why worry about it? I just told them what the world would be like, straight up.
    â€œFirst, Roger Ebert would be out of a job,” I said. “He’d give good movies one mangled knuckle up.
    â€œAnd playing basketball, everybody’d be like, ‘Hey man, high