Free Punished! by David Lubar

CHAPTER ONE
Bound for the Library

    “T his is a terrible idea,”I told Benedict as we walked up the stone steps toward the huge wooden door. “We could be having fun.” It was wonderfully warm outside—a perfect day for tossing a baseball around.
    “It’s a great idea,” Benedict said. He dashed ahead of me and yanked the door open.
    “But we have two weeks. The reports aren’t due until the end of the month.” I left the beautiful May weather behind and followed Benedict into the cool darkness of the old building. The half-dozen lamps scattered around the floor tried their best to brighten the place, but the tall ceiling soaked up most of the light.
    “It’s way too soon to get started,” I said as the door closed behind me.
    “We’ve got half days next week,” Benedict said. “If we do our reports now, we’ll be free then. Trust me, Logan. This is a good idea.”
    “I get it,” I said. “You’re trying to be picked as Student of the Month.” As long as I’d known him, Benedict had wanted that—especially since the award came with a coupon good for a free super-deluxe pizza from Zio’s Kitchen. I’d won the award last January, but I promised myself I’d save my coupon for the perfect summer day. That would be the day I hit my first home run of the Little League season. Perfect pizza, perfect hit, perfect day—it would be worth the wait.
    I didn’t think Benedict would ever have to figure out when to use a pizza coupon. One way or another, no matter how hard he tried, he always messed up before the end of the month.
    “I’ve got a real shot this month,” he said. “I can almost taste that pizza. Especially since I’m going to write such a great report—as soon as I figure out a good subject.”
    “Come on. Let’s just get this over with.” There was no way I’d admit it to Benedict, but his idea sort of made sense. Our teacher, Mr. Vernack, had assigned us reports. We had to write five whole pages on the topic: “What’s So Great about Being a Human?” As far as I was concerned, I could answer that in one word. Baseball. But I had to fill five pages. And we couldn’t just make stuff up. Mr.Vernack said we were supposed to use at least three different sources, not counting the Internet. That meant stuff like books and magazines—which, naturally, meant the library. So Benedict and I had come here right after school.
    We walked past the towering rows of bookcases in the adult area and through the hall that led to the kids’ department. I didn’t expect we’d stay very long. Benedict has a hard time sitting still. So do I, but he makes
me
look calm. Even so, I thought we’d stay for more than five minutes.
    I was wrong.
    When we got to the kids’ area, I grabbed a couple of baseball books from the shelves in the sports section. I knew right where they were because I always checked to see if they’d gotten any new ones in. I love 796.357. That was their Dewey decimal number. I opened the first book and started to flip through it when,
WHACK
, Benedict ran past, smacked me on the back, and yelled, “Tag! You’re it.”
    He dashed down the hall. I had no choice. It’s impossible to sit still once you’re tagged. Totally impossible. It’s like if someone sings, “Row, row, row your—” and then stops, you just have to finish it by singing, “boat.” I chased him. He didn’t head back to the adult section. Instead, he made a sharp left and raced down the stairs to the basement.
    I followed. A sign near the steps said: REFERENCE SECTION. By the time I reached the bottom, Benedict had vanished among the shelves. But I could hear his footsteps. I rushed after him. “I’ll get you!” I shouted.
    I reached the end of the aisle. From the echo of his footsteps, it sounded like he’d turned right. I swung that way and caught a glimpse of him as I hurried to the end of the next aisle.
    “Slowpoke!” he called.
    “Oh yeah?” I put my head down and pumped my legs