I’ve already told him twice that my name was Bud, not Buddy.
I didn’t care that Todd Amos was twelve years old, I didn’t care that he was twice as big as me, and I didn’t care that his mother was being paid to take care of me. I wasn’t about to let anybody call me Buddy and stick a pencil up my nose all the way to the R.
I swung as hard as I could at Todd’s big balloon head. Somewhere between the time I threw my punch and the time it landed my fist came open and when my hand landed it made a pop like a .22 rifle going off. Todd fell on the floor like he’d been coldcocked.
He sputtered and muttered and felt the spot where I’d slapped him. Then a big smile came on his face and he stood up and started walking real slow toward where I was on the bed. He untied his robe and dropped it on the floor like he was getting ready to do some hard work.
I jumped to the floor and got my fists up. Todd might’ve been a lot bigger than me but he’d better be ready, this wasn’t going to be a bird’s nest sitting on the ground for him. He could kiss my wrist if he thought I was going to let him whip me up without a good fight.
Being this brave was kind of stupid. Even though Todd was a puffy, rich old mamma’s boy who wore a robe and slippers, he could hit like a mule and it wasn’t too long before I’d decided enough was enough.
But the story that Mrs Amos was hearing from her lying son was only that Todd had tried to wake me up so I could go to the bathroom.
Mrs Amos hated bed wetters more than anything in the world and my bed had a sticky, hot, smelly baby sheet on it. She’d said it wasn’t anything personal and after I had proved myself for two or three months, I could get a proper cloth sheet, but until then she had to protect her mattress.
She pulled Todd to his feet and led him to the door. She looked over at me. ‘You are a beastly little brute and I will not tolerate even one night with you under my roof. Who knows what you would be capable of while we slept?’
The door shut behind them and I heard a key jiggle in the lock.
I plugged the right side of my nose and tried real hard to blow the smell of rubber out of the left side.
The key jiggled in the lock again. This time when the door opened Mr Amos was standing with Mrs Amos. He was carrying my suitcase. Uh-oh, they’d looked inside. I could tell because the twine that held it together was tied in a kind of knot that I didn’t know.
36
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