Free The Hurt Patrol by Mary McKinley Page A

eyes were wet and blank. Beau knew that look. All the Hurts knew that look. It was that “Suck It Up and Take It Like a Hurt” look. It was the shutdown, you-can’t-fire-me-’cuz-I-quit look.
    So when something clicked, and Beau spoke up, it was astounding. For him too.
    Especially at first when his voice wouldn’t work. He’d noticed that about himself before. He knew if he kept trying, his voice would get louder. So he kept trying. He cleared his throat over and over. He gaped like a fish out of water, though eventually it worked. Abruptly.
    â€œKEEP IT UP!” All of a sudden—his voice just boomed out of him. Everyone turned and stared: the Hurts, their Dementors, the wild animals of the forest, everybody . . .
    Beau was completely red. The Bear Clan was gob-smacked. They just gawped. This was all new.
    Beau kept going to keep his voice from freezing up with fear again. He found it got easier.
    â€œYou heard me! Head Lice Clan, or whatever you dicks call yourselves! Keep it up! Just keep calling him that! I am commanding you to, ass-wipes!”
    They couldn’t believe their luck. The Bear Clan brayed in delight.
    â€œO-hell yeah; we will!” “Aahahaha! Awesome!” “Really?!” “He’s commanding us!” “Hey, cutie, YOU should smile more!” “Wait—did he just call us ‘Head Lice Clan’?!”
    Beau answered really loudly, though his voice still shook. “Yeah! Yeah, I did, you head lice!” He tried to speak normally. “And you heard me, Head Lice Clan! Because you are head lice—and—and stinking ball-sacks and bullies! Because it’s on! ”
    Everyone stared at Beau. He had gone rogue. This was completely off script. Apparently, Beau did not understand. How it worked was some stupid group of losers was supposed to say douchey things to the Hurt Patrol in general and Hunter in particular, and then everyone else was supposed to screech with approval, like a bunch of bonobos till they stopped. No variation. Tradition.
    Hunter’s big old head swiveled over to regard Beau, his enormously magnified eyes mystified behind his lenses. The insulted Head Lice Clan mulled for a minute. The scoutmasters were too close for them to settle anything. This jihad would have to be tabled.
    But after that, Beau noticed a subtle shift took place. Having spoken up once, it was possible to rouse the other guys and exhort them to overthrow their evil overlords. The Hurts began planning a little surprise or two themselves. The thing was not to rush anything; they wouldn’t get a second chance.
    Later that week, the Hurts did not complain when they were chosen to dig the auxiliary latrine. It was a time-consuming and mostly unsupervised job, therefore perfect. As they dug, they brainstormed. . . .
    â€œWe could put pudding in their sleeping bags. I heard that guys do that to get each other.” Rob was trying to remember all the urban legends of revenge.
    â€œWhere would we get a bunch of pudding? It’s a huge deal to get sweets.” Pete was practical.
    â€œWell, how about toothpaste?”
    â€œNah, that’s another one where we would have to be able to get inside their tent, without them noticing. How would we do that?” Kyle pondered. He liked puzzles. He was really getting into this.
    â€œWell . . . we could distract them.” Hunter chimed in. Somehow, nobody much wanted to hear his idea for how he proposed to do that. Beau could tell he was feeling better, though. He had dialed down that blank, empty . . . scary look.
    â€œWe need to be sneaky. It’s counterproductive if we get in a butt-hurt of trouble.” Kyle, again.
    â€œThen something we can’t be traced to,” reflected Rob.
    â€œSomething quiet,” ruminated Beau.
    â€œSo I heard this too—these two troops got into a fight and one troop gave the other brownies, like to apologize—but they had