Free Tommy Puke and the Boy with the Golden Barf by Robert T. Jeschonek Page A

Get it off!" Red turned in circles, scrubbing harder at his goop-covered eyes. "It stinks! Oh please, it stinks so bad!" He coughed so hard, he gagged.
    Brendan laughed harder. "Hold that pose!" Jogging over, he bent down and grabbed Red's phone from the ground. "Let me get a shot of that, dude!"
    Just as Brendan raised the phone and started shooting video, Crick s uddenl y let go of m e . Stumbling away, I turn ed and looked back. What I saw was this: Crick, bug-eyed, flailing his arms, as someone held a hand over his mouth.
    It was a filthy hand, covered in smudges of dirt, smears of grime, and streaks of blood. The nails on the fingers were chipped and cracked, with black crescents pushed up under them. A buzzing fly circled twice and landed on the thumb.
    When the hand lifted, I could see that Crick's mouth and chin were coated with the same yellow ooze that covered Red's eyes. The second the hand moved away, Crick started spitting and hacking, fighting to clear the stuff.
    It was then that Brendan stopped shooting video of Red and turned in Crick's direction. "Huh?" This time, he didn't start laughing or shooting video. "What the heck is that stuff? Egg yolk or something?"
    As he said it, a strange figure stepped out from behind Crick. It was then that I saw Tommy Puke for the first time.
    He was about my height, five feet tall, if you didn't count the forked plume of hair sticking up eight inches from the top of his head. His brown eyes were wide and bloodshot, as if he hadn't slept in a month. He had a huge hooked nose like a warty pickle hanging down over his duck bill lips.
    And every inch of him was as filthy as the hand that had covered Crick's mouth. His plume of hair glistened with grease; powdery white dandruff was sprinkled through the unkempt tangles. S plotches of grit on his cheeks and chin made him look like he had a five o'clock shadow, a beard in the making. Patches of unidentifiable scum caked hi s neck and arms and bare feet.
    Stains of many shapes and colors painted his hole-covered bluejeans and his t-shirt, which might have been white once but now looked gray-green-br own. Flies did loop-de-loops around his scrawny, knobby body; he didn't s hoo them off when they landed.
    The words on the chest of his shirt read, "Neatness Counts."
    When he turned to me and smiled, his teeth were yellow as bananas. "Hi, I'm Tommy. What's your name?"
    "Jiggles," snapped Brandon before I could answer. "Just Jigs for short."
    Tommy gave me a wink. "'Scuse me a minute , will you?"
    I shrugged. "Okay."
    It was then I found out where that yellow goop on Red and Crick's faces had come from.
    To mmy looked at Brendan and opened his mouth. A gurgling sound started deep in his throat and steadily grew louder, as if he were dredging up something from the bottom of his lungs.
    When the gurgling reached his mouth and stopped, he clamped his lips shut. Cheeks puffed out, he cranked his head back, then flung it forward, launching the contents of his mouth straight at Brendan.
    So that was what he'd dredged up from his lungs--a yellow glob of ooze. A massive loogie shooting through the air toward Brendan's face.

    If only Bre n dan hadn't dodged to one side, letting the loogie sail harmlessly past. "Nice try, Doctor Hork-and-Spew!" Laughing, he pounded his fist in his palm and stomped toward Tommy. "Now it's time to meet Doctor Break-a-Few !"
    My heart pounded. I thought of running over to lend a hand...but Tommy had the situation under control.
    Grinning, he held out his hands, palms up, and wiggled his fingers. "Come and get it, tough guy!"
    Just as Brendan was about to pounce, Tommy turned sideways and flung up his arm. He aimed his crusty underarm point-blank at Brendan, and a little cloud of green gas wafted out.
    The gas swirled up around Brendan's face, and he started coughing. He flapped his hands, but he couldn't make the gas dissipate. "What the heck?" He coughed harder and squinted his eyes shut. "This stuff's...some kind