Read Online Middle School: Get Me Out of Here! by James Patterson - Free Book Online

could go on anywhere from a couple of days… to infinity.

    See, it wasn’t just Zeke’s sculpture that got broken that day. I’d also broken Mom’s trust, and maybe for the last time. Because after this, I didn’t think she’d ever trust me again.
    I mean, would you?











THE NEXT-BEST THING
    S o if I told you that by Christmas break I was ready to jump back into Operation: Get a Life, would you think I was crazy? Stupid? Really, really forgetful? Let me explain.
    The way I saw it, I had a kind of technicality on my hands. Technically, the mission was in a time-out when I got that suspension. So technically, I wasn’t required to call GAME OVER .
    In fact, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed obvious. Everything had been way better—not perfect, but better—right up until I called that time-out in the first place. That’s when I started messing everything up.
    It was time to get back to Getting a Life.
    And of course, I didn’t have to ask Leo twice. The conversation went something like this:

    That just left the little complication of me being grounded (until further notice). We were going to have to figure out a way to come up with all new stuff without ever leaving Killarney Avenue.
    But between me and Leo, I was pretty sure we could think of something. Like Mom always says—it just takes a little imagination. And if there’s one thing both Leo and I have, it’s that.
    So let’s just call this next part—



For Christmas I wasn’t exactly rolling in cash, so I gave coupons for anything that Mom, Grandma, and Georgia wanted me to draw. They all said themselves, and for part of the day I was like a real artist, drawing each of them as they sat for their portraits. They even got to pick where they wanted to be, and I drew that too.
    It was also the first time I’d given my own art as a real gift, and I guess since it was Christmastime, Leo said I could count it as three things for the Get a Life list instead of just one.
    Hey, I’ll take it. Merry Christmas to me too!

GO BIG OR GO HOME
    B y the end of Christmas break, my Get a Life list had 114 things on it. That meant 81 to go, with 77 days until the Spring Art Show at Cathedral. I was a little bit behind, but it wasn’t too bad, seeing as I’d been chained to Grandma’s house for the last two weeks.
    And I must have been doing something right, because Mom said I could be not completely grounded once school started up again. I asked her what “not completely” meant, but she just said, “Let’s see how it goes” and “Don’t push your luck.” I didn’t ask any more questions after that.
    Now that I was going to have a little more freedom, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I’d been racking up plenty of small stuff overbreak, but it was time to start thinking big again.
    Like really big.
    Like Bigfoot Hairy big.
    It had been a while now, and maybe if I was lucky, Hairy had taken an anger-management class or something. Anyway, I was determined to at least
try
to get him to tell me something about my dad.
    But I wasn’t going in without backup. I needed someone who already knew about the whole Dad situation and who didn’t scare easily. Also, someone who was a real live human being. (Sorry, Leo!)
    So as soon as I got to school on the first day back, I went looking for you-know-who.
    I found him at his locker, drawing a new pair of eyeballs on the door to replace the ones Mr. McQuade had cleaned off over the break.
    “Khatchy!” he said when he saw me. (He’d never called me that before, but that’s Matty the Freak for you.) “What’d you get me for Christmas?”
    “The other half of your brain,” I said. “What’d you get me?”
    Matty shrugged and unzipped his backpack.Then he took out this sweet stainless-steel pen, still in the package.
    “I’m not so big on wrapping stuff,” he said, and tossed it at me.
    Now I felt stupid. I hadn’t even thought about getting a present for him. And the pen looked