Free Kid Owner by Tim Green

right, and I’m a half . . .”
    â€œHalf what?” Jackson wrinkled his brow.
    â€œNothing.” I wasn’t going to call myself a half-pint shrimp like some kids did. Instead, I looked at my feet and scuffed them as we went out through the back entrance of the school to where my mom would be picking us up.
    When I looked up, I saw Izzy’s shiny golden ponytail. She’d come out of the girls’ locker room and was still dressed in her soccer uniform with grass stains on her shorts and the backs of her long, pale legs. I didn’t even warn Jackson, and I didn’t care who else saw me, I just bolted right for her, grabbed her arm as gently as I could, and darted directly in front of her with a halfspin sort of dance move that left us face-to-face.
    â€œHey, Izzy. I’m sorry.” I spoke the way a woodpecker attacks a tree. “Like, really, really sorry. I know you said I’m a jerk, but I’m not. I acted like a jerk, but I’m not a jerk. Markham and Simpkin and all of them were making fun of us for sitting with a girl and then I called them girls because I was so mad and . . . stupid. Please. Sit with us at lunch tomorrow, Izzy. Let me have another chance.”
    She looked down at me in total surprise—more surprise than when I’d insulted her out of nowhere—but then she recovered and her face turned dark.
    â€œPlease.” I spoke in a sad and urgent whisper and closed my eyes, waiting and hoping.

19
    â€œYou’re really sorry?” she asked.
    I opened my eyes, wanting to read her face. Her voice didn’t sound too forgiving. “Yes. I am.”
    â€œWhat would you do for me?” Her blue eyes were cold and hard and squinty.
    â€œUh, anything?” My mind whirred. “I guess.”
    â€œRead a book?”
    â€œA . . . sure. That’s easy,” I said, relieved and confused at the same time.
    She fished into her book bag and pulled out the book I’d seen her reading before English class. “I finished this in the locker room before practice. Here. Read it, then we’ll talk.”
    I took the baby-blue book from her and she marched right on by. I stood and stared. “Talk in lunch tomorrow?”
    â€œSure.” She hollered without turning around. “Can you read that fast?”
    â€œSure!” I shouted, grinning at Jackson, who caught up to me just as Izzy disappeared into the passenger seat of her mom’s dark-blue Range Rover.
    â€œDude, she’s kinda pretty.” Jackson stared at the Range Rover as it pulled away.
    â€œBetter than that,” I said. “I think she’s really nice.”
    â€œThat’s what I said,” Jackson pointed out.
    â€œGreat minds think alike.” I studied the cover of the book, which was called Wonder , and saw that the childlike drawing of the face on the cover had just one eye and it was out of place. “Weird.”
    â€œNow I’m weird?” Jackson growled.
    â€œNo, not you.” I stuffed the book in my own bag. “If anyone’s weird, it’s me. Come on. There’s my mom.”
    Jackson was seriously disappointed with me when we got to my house. He splashed and dove and flopped around the pool, hooting joyfully and making all kinds of noise. The neighbors probably thought we were having a party. But nothing could get me out of my chair in the shade of the cabana. I sat glued to that book, ate dinner with Jackson and my mom, and jumped right back into it, barely saying good-bye to Jackson when his own mom came later to get him. It’s true when I say that I didn’t read the whole thing that night just because of Izzy. I could have easily faked it, right?
    But this book got me.
    I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about it either. It’s the story of a kid who is seriously deformed. People see this kid and literallyrun or scream or both. He’s just like me or you, but he’s trapped inside this