Free The Tanglewood Terror by Kurtis Scaletta Page A

to worry about any of this.”
    Maybe Tom and Will weren’t ratting on me, but they hadn’t forgiven me either.
    He gave me a big shove, and I shoved him back, which we’re not supposed to do, but sometimes you shove first and think later, and this was one of those times.
    He tried to shove me again, and I grabbed his arm.
    He yanked it loose. “I’m not your little brother, Parrish. You can’t pull that WWE junk on me.”
    We’re both big guys and neither of us is easy to shove around, but we shoved each other all over the field. I finally got my shoulder into his chest and sent him backward onto a padding of mushrooms, which was lucky for him. Coach was blowing the whistle the whole time, but it was like a million miles away. I could practically feel steam blasting out of my ears at that point.
    “Hit the showers, Parrish!” he shouted. “Chains, you gosit on the bench until he’s done.” Coach knew better than to send us both in at once.
    I left the field, stomping on as many mushrooms as I could on the way. I wanted to crush something to bits, and for now they’d have to do.

The shower cooled me off, and by the time I got dressed, I was sorry. Maybe this time the coach really wouldn’t let me back. I didn’t want to face anybody. The locker room was between the gym and the field. I went out through the gym side rather than walk by Coach and everyone again. I slung the equipment bag over one shoulder, my backpack on the other, and my helmet under my arm.
    I struggled a bit with everything as I walked home. I should have left the helmet in the locker room, I decided as the backpack slid off my shoulder and down to my elbow for the eleventh time. Somebody would have put it away for me. I probably didn’t even need it anymore.
    “Psst. Pig Boy! Want some help?”
    I wheeled around and saw Mandy.
    “What are you doing here?”
    “I was using the computers at the library. I saw the guys playing football and wanted to see if you were there.”
    “I was, but I left early. I thought you had the whole Internet on your phone.”
    “Not really. The library has access to all kinds of stuffyou can’t get at from any computer. Newspaper archives. Special collections at other libraries.”
    “Ooh … how exciting.” Ms. Weller would have loved her.
    “I found some interesting stuff, so there. Getting to a real library was half the reason I split in the first place.”
    “You weren’t worried about anyone seeing you?”
    “I didn’t talk to anyone. I just sneaked in and found a computer in the corner.”
    “I thought you needed a library card to log in.”
    “I have ways,” she said.
    I could see the players trotting off the field in the distance, Coach clapping his hands and yelling something. The groundskeeper was already at the far end of the field, giving the mushrooms a series of little blasts with his sprayer.
    “Hey!” said Mandy.
    “Huh!” I’d sort of zoned out.
    “I’ll buy a pizza if you get it,” said Mandy. “I have plenty of money, but my face is stapled to telephone poles all over town.”
    “All right. I could go for a pizza.” I struggled to get the backpack back on my shoulder—it had slid down to my elbow again.
    “Give me that,” said Mandy, taking the helmet.
    We walked toward downtown. Mandy turned up her collar to hide her face when we hit Keatston Street, and stayed so close behind me that she kept bumping me with my helmet. I called Dad from Mandy’s phone, but she made me use an app routed through something called a proxy so she wouldn’t show up on our caller ID. Dad picked up.
    “Hello?”
    “It’s me.”
    “How come the caller ID says you’re in Fresno?”
    “It’s been acting up lately. I’m calling from the … from Tom’s cell.”
    “Okay, ’cause I’d be really ticked if you went off to Cali without me. Hey, I went shopping! Got all kinds of stuff that isn’t made out of mammal.”
    “Great, thanks.”
    “I know you don’t eat pig, and I