Free B005N8ZFUO EBOK by David Lubar Page B

Maybe he was used to seeing kids flee from him.
    “They’re scared of us,” Cheater said, grinning. “Can you believe that? They think everyone from Edgeview is dangerous. Do I look like a killer?”
    I squinted at him. “Hard to tell in the dark. Take off your glasses and try to look mean.”
    He had his hand halfway to his face before he realized I was kidding.
    I wondered how the kids from town knew we were from Edgeview.
    “It’s a small place,” Cheater said, as if he’d guessed my next question. “So we really stick out. They know we don’t go to the public school. They call us ‘Alters,’ since we go to the Alternative School.”
    “Guess what we call them?” Flinch asked.
    “I give up. What?”
    “Edgies,” Flinch told me. “I came up with that.”
    I wasn’t surprised. Flinch had a gift for funny stuff. He was the one who’d started calling Waylon Hindenburg .
    “You’ll get used to them,” Cheater told me. “Hey, I’m certainly used to people treating me different. When everyone stares at you, after a while it’s like nobody at all is staring.”
    “That’s the truth,” Flinch said.
    I guess they had a point. But it really felt strange the way the town kids acted. I’d wondered how they’d react to someone who was really dangerous, like Bloodbath. He’d plow through these kids like a bulldozer through a basket of light bulbs.
    As we got closer to the small strip mall, I scanned the stores, hoping for a pizzeria or a burger place. No luck. There was a video store at the end nearest us. I guess it closed early, because the lights were off. I realized I hadn’t seen a movie in weeks. Past that store, a laundry pumped the steamy smell of clothes dryers into the air. The drugstore next to it had a sign in front that said NO LOITERING. Beyond the drugstore,
jangling and flashing in that unmistakable way, stood the arcade. It was called MondoVideo. Nice surprise—it was larger than I’d thought it would be. I went inside, expecting nothing more than a few hours of fun.
    But it was in the arcade, surrounded by the bright noise of mindless electronic entertainment, that I began to see the whole picture.

    TWO EDGIES TALKING ON THE SIDEWALK A BLOCK FROM THE ARCADE
    Edgie One: Oh man, it’s Alters.
     
    Edgie Two: Let’s get out of here. Those guys will beat up anyone they get their hands on. [he starts to run]
     
    Edgie One: [running] I hope they don’t follow us.
     
    Edgie Two: I heard some of them carry knives.
     
    Edgie One: [panting and looking back] It’s okay. They didn’t follow us.
     
    Edgie Two: That was close. I hate those guys.
     
    Edgie One: Don’t worry. I heard the place is getting shut down.

A GLIMMER OF THE TRUTH
    I ’m not a bad game player. I do best at the driving games, but I do okay on the other stuff, too. And I like pinball. Torchie, Cheater, and Lucky were all pretty good, but Flinch came close to being amazing. I started out playing Road Revenge. Flinch was standing next to me, taking on one of the new fighting games with the really cool graphics. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he was undefeated after I’d already gone through a dollar. That got my attention. In the next hour, I saw him roll up incredibly high scores at almost every game he played. I could barely believe that someone who was so jumpy could play games so well.
    “He’s got great reflexes,” Torchie said as we watched Flinch blast his way through level after level on Smash TV. They had a lot of the latest stuff at the arcade, but Flinch seemed to like the old games as much as the new ones. He’d go from something brand-new like Shaolin Annihilator to something ancient like Pole Position, Frogger, or Centipede. I stuck with the old games, since most of them were still just a quarter. I didn’t want to run through Lucky’s money too quickly. I even played a game of Skee Ball for old times’ sake, hitting just enough of a score to win one ticket. My sister and I used to play