Free Cody's Varsity Rush by Todd Hafer Page B

me down. I ask him if he’s okay, and he looks at me for just a second. ‘Well, I’m in jail. You call that okay?’” Pork Chop coughed. “What a loser.”
    Cody closed his eyes for a moment. “Yeah, I was expecting something more from him. But that’s all he’s got. He hangs up his intercom phone, pushes his chair back, and walks away.”
    Pork Chop took a long pull from the double straws he had plunged in his chocolate shake. “That is one freaky dream, dawg. And you say you’ve had it twice?”
    â€œYeah. And it was almost exactly the same both times. The only difference is that the first time, it was my mom who drove me to the prison.”
    â€œSo, Code, do you think that’s the way it might have gone down—if Weitz had lived and the police had arrested him?”
    Cody exhaled slowly. He imagined Weitz regaining consciousness and staggering to the highway. He wondered if it was the injuries or the alcohol—or both—that made him suddenly lurch into the path of an oncoming Peterbilt semitruck. “Maybe,” he said sadly. “I was hoping he could turn his life around. Be a different kind of person. You know, I told him to pray—when I went up to his truck after the wreck. I’ve wondered a lot if he heard me. I hope he did.”
    Pork Chop narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
    â€œSo he could be forgiven.”
    â€œBut, dawg, think of how he terrorized us! He tried to kill you. He doesn’t deserve to be forgiven.”
    â€œThat’s the point, Chop. None of us deserves it.”
    Pork Chop finished his shake with a long, loud slurp. “I don’t know about you, dawg. The stuff you say sometimes, it keeps me awake at night.”
    Cody leveled his eyes at his friend. “Good,” he said.

Chapter 6 Nowhere to Hide

    W orld History had quickly become Cody’s least favorite high school class. To Cody, Mr. Dellis, with his dark, slicked-down hair and round glasses, bore an eerie resemblance to Dr. Octopus, Spider-Man’s arch enemy. In reality, however, the teacher had a different enemy: Christianity.
    â€œI will teach you things the textbooks don’t have the guts to report,” he had told his class on the first day of school. “I am going to teach you history as it actually was, not the way certain groups try to spin it. I don’t mean to offend anyone, but I am certain that will happen. That’s what results when you are committed to giving the unvarnished facts and your unbiased opinions about them. I will make some of you uncomfortable, but that is part of the educational process.”
    Cody had nodded approvingly upon hearing these words. “Sounds to me like this class will be cool,” he said to Robyn and Pork Chop after the first class. “I’d kinda like to learn some stuff that isn’t in the history books—get the real inside scoop, you know?”
    Robyn had narrowed her sky-blue eyes, as if deep in thought. “I don’t know, Cody,” she said slowly. “Something’s kind of bothering me.”
    Cody shrugged. “What could be bothering you, Hart? It was just a bunch of introductory stuff.”
    â€œWell for one thing,” she said, “there is no such thing as an ‘unbiased opinion.’ There’s a reason they’re called opinions, you know.”
    Pork Chop smiled at Cody. “She’s got a point, dawg. You should listen to her more—that’s my unbiased opinion anyway.”
    â€œThank you, Deke,” Robyn said. “I couldn’t agree more.”
    Cody rolled his eyes.
    As the school days piled up, Mr. Dellis gave more and more of his “unbiased” opinions: “The Bible glorifies war and demeans women.” “The Bible is filled with contradictions.” “The Bible is a second-rate source of history, at best.” “The Bible promotes racism.” “The most