Read Online Cut Back by Todd Strasser - Free Book Online

are you doing here?”
    â€œSaving your ass.”
    â€œSorry, grommet, it’s too late for that,” Curtis growled. “This is the last straw. I’ve had it with this crap. I’m renaming this place the Alamo. The only way they’ll take me out is in a body bag.”
    â€œAnd they will, too,” Kai said. “You walk out there with that gun and you’ll be doing exactly what they want you to do.”
    Curtis frowned.
    â€œCome here.” Kai went to the window and parted the blinds slightly. “Look at those guys. See anything?”
    â€œYeah, I see a couple of geeks from the town engineer’s office. So what?”
    â€œLook at their chests,” Kai said.
    Curtis squinted through the blinds. He frowned. “What the hell?”
    â€œKevlar vests. Body armor. Not exactly the normal dress code for geeks from the town engineer’s office, is it?”
    â€œWell, I’ll be,” Curtis muttered.
    â€œThat means they expect you to go out there and do something crazy,” Kai said. “Want to know what they don’t expect? They don’t expect you to go back out there and apologize for tearing up that citation. Say it was temporary insanity and ask for another one.”
    Curtis grit his teeth. “The hell I will.”
    â€œWhy are you trying to make trouble for yourself?” Kai asked. “Know how easy it would be to fix your problem? All you have to do is move the Dumpster. Maybe you don’t even have to move it. Maybe all you have to do is put a bucket under the leak. But if you don’t go back out there, they’re going to havethis contempt thing hanging over your head. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I’m pretty sure you can’t fix it with a bucket.”
    Curtis pursed his lips and looked down at the floor. His shoulders drooped. “Christ on broken crutches.”
    Kai waited and said nothing. Finally Curtis heaved a big sigh. “You’re a smart kid, grom, but you’re missing the big picture. Maybe you’re right about this battle, but the war ain’t over. They’re gonna keep coming back at me again and again. They’re grinding me down, grom. It’s like they know I can only take so much of this before I blow.”
    â€œMaybe something will change,” Kai said. “Maybe you’ll be able to stop it once and for all.”
    â€œNot a chance,” Curtis said. “It’s me against the world, grom. There’s too much money to be made by booting my sorry ass out of here. Greed’s a powerful force, my friend. If it was a wave, it would be twice the size of Maverick’s going off twenty-four-seven, three hundred sixty-five days a year.”
    â€œOkay, but for right now you could make your life a lot easier by putting down the shotgun and going back out there and askingfor another copy of that citation,” Kai said.
    Curtis looked down at the gun, then tossed it onto the couch. Kai flinched. It was crazy the way he tossed that gun around. Like he didn’t care that it might go off accidentally.
    â€œOkay, grom, this time I’ll do it,” Curtis said. “But I’m making no promises about next time.”

Thirteen
    W hen Kai got to the T-shirt shop he found the Alien Frog Beast Hockaloogie standing on the sidewalk outside, staring at the window.
    â€œThis surfing display ain’t working.” Kai’s father was talking about a display he’d asked Kai to create after he’d noticed that the only store in town that seemed to get foot traffic on hot sunny afternoons was Sun Haven Surf. The reason people went into the surf shop at that time of day was that in the afternoons the onshore breeze would start to blow out the waves. The surfers had nothing better to do than look at surfboards and ogle Jade, Kai’s sexy “friend” who worked behind the front counter. Pat figured that if he had Kai do asurfing