Free Dunc and Amos on Thin Ice by Gary Paulsen

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    Duncan—Dunc—Culpepper was in his garage installing a new state-of-the-art speedometer on the handlebars of his bike.
    “Pass me that wrench.”
    Amos Binder, Dunc’s best friend for life, was slumped on a bench staring out the window. He let out a long, deep sigh and, without looking, handed Dunc a tool from the red box on the floor.
    “I asked for a wrench, Amos, not a hammer. What’s wrong with you, anyway? You’ve been moping around all morning.”
    “Melissa.” Amos rested his chin on the back of the bench and sighed again.
    Dunc knew that Amos was crazy in love with a girl named Melissa Hansen. He also knew that if he asked Amos any more questions he would have to hear all about her—for the ten zillionth time. Dunc fished the wrench out of the toolbox and continued working.
    “She called me last night,” Amos said.
    “Hand me the pliers.”
    “At least I’m pretty sure it was her. I can always tell by the cute way her phone makes my phone ring,” Amos said, not moving.
    Dunc rolled his eyes and got the pliers himself. Amos had this funny idea that deep down Melissa wanted to be his girlfriend and was just hiding her true feelings. Amos was also convinced that even though she had never so much as breathed in his direction, at any moment she was going to break down and call him.
    Dunc put the tools back in the box and wiped his hands on a rag. “Well, that about does it. Want to take it out for a test ride?”
    “She’s probably heartbroken.”
    Dunc threw one leg over his bike and started to push off. “You coming?”
    Amos didn’t move. “It’s really too bad I disappointed her like that. Maybe I should send her flowers or something. What do you think?”
    The bike wheels rolled back and forth. Finally Dunc stepped off, leaned his bike on its kickstand, and sat down on the bench. “All right, Amos. I’m positive I’ll regret asking this—what happened?”
    “Like I said, Melissa called me last night. Only I didn’t quite make it to the phone and I know she’s depressed about it. I hope she doesn’t do anything drastic. It was all Amy’s fault.”
    Amy was Amos’s older sister. She was constantly trying to talk their parents into moving away while Amos was down at the mall or over at Dunc’s house. Once she answered an adoption ad in the newspaper and sent the people Amos’s picture. The couple sent the picture back with a nice letter saying they had decided not to adopt after all.
    “Amy had one of her stupid boyfriends over,” Amos continued. “And she told me that if I came downstairs while he was there, she’d chop me into little pieces and feed me to Scruff.” Scruff was the Binder family’s Border collie.
    “Anyway, there I was, minding my own business up on the roof, when—”
    “Wait a minute. What were you doing on the roof?” Dunc asked.
    “How else was I supposed to hear what Amy and that geek were saying?”
    “You were eavesdropping?”
    “Let’s just say I was gathering incriminating evidence for use at some future date.”
    “I don’t get it. How could you hear anything they were saying from the roof?”
    “Easy. All I had to do was tie a rope to the TV antenna and lower myself headfirst down the fireplace chimney. The tricky part was holding the tape recorder low enough to pick up their voices.”
    “Oh. Did you get anything you could use for blackmail?”
    “I don’t know. I haven’t listened to thetape yet. The recorder sort of got lost as I was flying around the living room.”
    Dunc raised one eyebrow and waited.
    Amos shifted on the bench. “See, just as I was all set to have control over Amy for life, the phone rang. Of course I knew it was Melissa calling to ask me if I wanted to come to her skating party.”
    “Of course. The one she’s having this Saturday?”
    Amos looked sharply at Dunc. “How did
you
know about it?”
    “She sent me an invitation. Herman Snodgrass said she invited everybody in school. Didn’t you get