Free Lucky Seven by Matt Christopher Page B

authoritative. “Just let me see your shadow get into a scrap and
     you won’t race her again, Chick,” came Mort Yates’s stern warning.
    Chick looked up at him. “But he nerfed me, Mort!”
    “There’s no law that says you can’t,” said Mort. “Why don’t you try nerfing him?”
    “Because I don’t like it, that’s why,” answered Chick hotly.
    “I said I didn’t do it on purpose,” insisted Jack, the Lola T-70 still under his complete control. “Can’t we drop it there?”
    Just then Butch’s black Porsche spun out on the sweeper and lay still. “For crying out loud, you guys!” he yelled. “Why don’t
     you keep your traps shut?”
    The Porsche was out of the race too. Butch picked it up, shooting an angry look at Mort and Chick.
    Chick managed to control his tongue andtemper and hung around until the race was over. Jack’s car had won the first race, and then had won over the other three
     drivers, too.
    Butch snapped at Chick outdoors, catching Chick by surprise. “You’re always shooting off your mouth, Chick. Why couldn’t you
     have waited till you were outside? I had a hot race going.”
    “Oh, yeah? How about me? What would you do if Harmon had nerfed
your
car?”
    “I don’t know. But I wouldn’t have yelled my head off like you did and thrown all the drivers off. Man!”
    Chick clamped his lips and ran down the street. He expected—hoped—that Butch would yell for him to slow down, but Butch didn’t.
     A lump rose and stuck in his throat.
    He almost bumped into Police Officer Tom Duffy as he rounded the corner onto Carbon Street. “Hey, watch it!” Tom yelled, holding
     out a ham-sized hand.
    “Oh, sorry, Mr. Duffy.”
    “What happened? Get into another scrap?”
    There you go. You didn’t even have to tell people any more.
    “Guess so,” said Chick, catching his breath. “Guess all I do is get into scraps.”
    “Jack Harmon again?”
    Chick nodded and explained what had happened. He also told about Butch.
    “Don’t worry too much about either of them,” advised Mr. Duffy. “I know both boys just as well as you do. And I know you too,
     Chick. You can’t take a ribbing. You fly off the handle like an angry hornet when you’re picked on. That’s why they pick on
     you. They enjoy seeing you get hot under the collar. The only thing to do is learn to take it. Show ‘em you’re not bothered
     by their foolishness. Before long they’ll get tired of sticking those pins into you.”
    Chick walked the rest of the way home, feeling a lot better. Guess policemen like Tom Duffy were made especially for kids
     like himself.
    In math class the following day Mr. Woodrow gave a fifteen-minute speed test. It was, in Chick’s opinion, tough. He skipped some problems, guessed at others. He was
     finished in ten minutes and spent the rest of the time drawing a racing car. It was low-slung, with narrow round wheels in
     front and wide flat ones in back.
    After the papers were handed in Chick put the drawing away. He finished it in history class, adding the driver, the circled
     numbers and the windshield wipers. It was pretty snazzy, he thought.
    Mr. Woodrow returned the corrected papers on Tuesday. Chick hated to look at the grade, but Mr. Woodrow’s blunt forefinger
     directed his eyes to it: 49.
    “It’s not quite, but almost, the lowest mark in class, Chick,” announced Mr. Woodrow not too kindly. “I want you to study
     that chapter of problems again, then do the test over.”
    Chick looked up. “You mean you’re giving me a chance to get a better mark?”
    “Not at all, my boy. What I want is for you to do them all over again, but with one difference: They’re to be one-hundred
     percent correct. Do you understand that, Chick?”
    Chick gulped and looked away. “I understand,” he said.
    He was aware of every student in the room looking at him. One pair of eyes, in particular, drew his attention. The taunting,
     teasing eyes of Jack Harmon.
    Chick remembered