Free Dunc's Dump by Gary Paulsen

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    Amos Binder held the two test tubes up to the light. “Yellow and blue,” he said. “If I mix them, I should get green.”
    Dunc Culpepper, Amos’s best friend for life, looked up from a newspaper he had spread on Amos’s bed. They were in Amos’s room, which always looked like a disaster area—unlike Dunc’s room, which was always neat. Dunc put the paper down. “I don’t think that’s what your parents had in mind when they gave you the chemistry set—making colors.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œYour grades in science. I was here the dayyour dad said they were in the toilet. They gave you the set so you could understand science, not play color games.”
    â€œMelissa,” Amos said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMelissa. She likes colors.”
    Amos would have died for Melissa Hansen, thought the sun rose and set on Melissa Hansen, thought his very heart beat and would always beat for Melissa Hansen. Melissa Hansen didn’t know he was alive.
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” Dunc put the paper down in the only clear spot on the bed—between a half-finished model dinosaur and an almost-used piece of pizza. “What do you mean Melissa likes colors?”
    â€œI overheard Janey Halverson tell Rebecca Bisgaard that she heard Janice Blitzer talking to her brother—you know, the one they call Garbage Can because of how he eats, except not to his face because he can unscrew your head …”
    â€œAmos.”
    â€œâ€¦Â and she said, Janice to Garbage Can, that she heard her best friend tell her
other
best friend that she knew Melissa Hansen liked to wear colorful clothes.”
    Dunc waited, but Amos didn’t say anything more.
    â€œThat’s it?” Dunc asked.
    Amos nodded.
    â€œFrom that you think Melissa likes colors?”
    Amos nodded again. “It’s just logical, isn’t it?”
    â€œAnd you think that if you know about colors Melissa will like you?”
    â€œIt’s a start. All I have to do is learn about colors. I can see it all now. I’ll be walking down the hall and Melissa will meet me and she’ll be wearing something with, you know, colors in it and I’ll look at it and I’ll say, you know, that I know about colors and then she’ll like me because I know about colors and I’ll ask her to go bike riding with me and while we’re riding …”
    â€œAmos, it’s getting away from you again.”
    â€œâ€¦Â I’ll ask her if she wants to go to a movie sometime, and she’ll say yes, and it’s all, Dunc, all because I know about colors. Now watch while I pour this yellow into the blue and get green.”
    â€œAmos, what are you mixing there?”
    â€œI don’t know. Just some things that came with the chemistry set. They had names on them, but I was more interested in the colors.”
    â€œDo you think it’s a good idea to mix them without knowing what they are?”
    â€œI know what they are—they’re blue and yellow. And I know if I mix them I get green.”
    â€œAmos—”
    â€œWatch.”
    Amos held up the yellow test tube and carefully poured the entire contents of the blue test tube into the yellow.
    The results were immediate.
    There was a loud
whuummph
kind of sound, like a large belch, and the room was instantly filled with a huge, packed cloud of green fog-smoke that smelled like a cross between rotten eggs and a skunk that’s been dead on the highway for about a month.
    â€œFire!” Amos yelled, choked, and ran for the door—or for where he thought the door ought to be. He missed by a good six feet and plowed into the dresser, where his entire collection of soccer bubble-gum cards was stored. “Fire!”
    Dunc dropped to all fours. There was an open area there about six inches high, and by laying his head down sideways, he could get a breath and see