Free Dunc Gets Tweaked by Gary Paulsen Page B

the air, and the wheels of the skateboard spun crazily. A squirrel sat next to his head and chattered at him angrily.
    “Amos,” Dunc repeated, “are you all right?”
    “Hello? Hello?” Amos put the receiver down and looked up at Dunc with a disappointed expression.
    “She hung up,” he said.

Dunc was at Amos’s house the next morning. Amos was stretched across an easy chair, and Dunc was sitting on the couch.
    “I don’t know if I can make it, Dunc.” Amos groaned and held the four-inch-wide bruise from the branch. It went all the way across his stomach.
    “You don’t have to compete. They disqualified you for tearing down the power lines.”
    “Then why do I have to go at all?”
    “Because it’s your duty. The tournament had to be postponed a day because of thepower loss. You have to go. You owe them at least that much.”
    “That’s not a good enough reason.”
    “Then go because Lash is making his run today.”
    “That’s not a good enough reason, either.”
    “I don’t know what to say, then.” He sat watching Amos.
    “Amos?” Amos’s mother called from the kitchen. She had a high voice that sometimes set Amos’s back teeth on edge.
    “What?”
    “You can’t sit in that chair all day. Your uncle Alfred is coming over to watch a football game with your father, and you know how he likes to sit in that chair.”
    “Uncle Alfred, Mom? Does he have to? He picks his feet.”
    “Everyone has little faults, son.”
    “It’s not a little fault. His feet smell terrible.”
    “Well, at least he leaves his socks on. He doesn’t get it all over the chair.”
    Amos sighed and stood slowly. “Let’s go to the skateboard park.”
    “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
    “I’m up to anything if it means avoiding Uncle Alfred.” He stretched out his stomach and winced.
    When Dunc stood up, a growl-whimper came from behind the couch.
    “What’s that?”
    “That’s Scruff.” Scruff was the family collie.
    “What’s he doing behind the couch?”
    “I was in the bathroom this morning practicing shaving—”
    “Practicing shaving?”
    “You know, for when I get older. My face was all lathered up, and I had just turned on Dad’s portable electric razor when I heard Melissa’s ring.”
    “How did you know it was her?”
    “I figured she’d be calling since she couldn’t get me yesterday at the tournament. She has a very distinctive ring. So my older sister was sitting at the dining-room table studying infectious diseases for health class. She saw me running out of the bathroom and thought I was foaming at themouth with rabies. She told Scruff to attack me.”
    “Your own dog attacks you?” Dunc stared at Amos.
    “Not usually. Most of the time whenever he’s near me, he just pulls his lip back and growls a little.”
    “He never has liked you too much, has he?”
    “Not since you made me try to screw antlers on his head for that most-unusual-pet contest when we were kids.”
    “That almost worked. We would have won if he hadn’t lifted his leg on that poodle. Reindeer don’t lift their legs.”
    Amos smiled, remembering, then shook his head. “Anyway, just as he jumped, I backed up and tripped and the razor caught his muzzle and shaved him all the way down the belly.”
    “So why is he hiding?”
    “He’s embarrassed—he think’s he’s ugly. Whenever I’m in the house, he growls from behind the couch and won’t come out. And I never did get to the phone. My sister answeredit, but she said it was just a magazine salesperson. She’s lying.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “She lies all the time. And besides, like I said, I know Melissa’s ring.”
    They went out the door to their bikes.

The power line was repaired at the track, and a large crowd had gathered to watch the professional competition. The bleachers were already full, so Dunc and Amos stood by the judges’ table to watch. They saw Lash by the starting gate and waved. He waved back.
    As they waited, two