Read Online Edsel Grizzler by James Roy - Free Book Online

next, as he noticed a small circle of flattened grass beside one of the Egg’s little chrome feet. He bent down to have a closer look. It appeared as if the little flat circle had been made by the foot, and by the weight of the dozens of little kids playing in the Egg over the past few days. But this didn’t explain why the circle was now beside the foot. It was almost as if the Egg had been moved sideways, just by a couple of centimetres. Moved and put down on top of a fallen plywood sign.
    This is indeed strange, he thought.
    By now the glow within the canopy had almost completely died away, and Edsel carefully reached out once more. The sharp iciness was gone, and as he slowly lifted the canopy, he heard a little hiss come out, a bit like the sound a can of soft drink makes when you first open it.
    Edsel looked in. Nothing seemed at all different. He didn’t climb into the seat, but he did give the little joystick a bit of a wiggle. Then he pressed the button in the centre of the dash. Nothing, and nothing.
    He was starting to feel a little cold now, even though it hadn’t been especially chilly when he’d first come out of the house, so he slid the sign out from under the foot of the Egg. Before propping it back up, however, he gave the Egg a bit of a nudge with his hip, just to get it back into place. And once he’d checked that the feet were back in their little circles of pressed-down lawn, he leaned the sign against the leg of the mysterious machine and turned to go inside.
    â€˜Edsel? Edsel! Barry, he’s not here!’ he heard his mother shouting from inside the house. ‘Barry! Come quick, he’s not here!’
    â€˜What?’ Heavy footsteps thudded through the house as his father ran to investigate, and blowing out a long, exasperated breath, Edsel reached into the cockpit, yanked out the plug, slipped it into his dressing-gown pocket, and lowered the dome.
    As he pulled the front door shut behind him, his parents came rushing down the hall, his father mostly hidden by his frantic mother. ‘What were you doing outside?’ she panted. ‘You can’t just go out in the middle of the night! What were you thinking? And what were you doing?’ ‘
    Nothing, Mum,’ he replied. ‘I thought I remembered where those sunglasses were.’
    â€˜And did you find them?’
    Edsel showed her his empty hands. ‘No, I was wrong again.’
    â€˜Hmm,’ Dad said, clearly unconvinced. ‘Go on, son, up to bed.’
    â€˜Goodnight, Mum. Night, Dad.’
    His father’s thin, porridgy face was paler than usual. ‘You’ll be the death of us, my boy,’ he muttered.

A s he rode around the corner near the front of the school the following morning, Edsel almost crashed into Kenny Sampson. He groaned. It was all about to kick off.
    But instead of crowing about the events of the previous evening, or even snarling something menacing like he would normally have done, Kenny surprised Edsel by backing away in panic, tripping over his own feet, and falling into the hedge.
    â€˜Stay away from me, you freak!’ he shouted, holding his arms across his face.
    â€˜What’s your problem, Sampson?’ Edsel got off his bike and took a step towards Kenny, who cowered further away, his shoes scrabbling in the dirt.
    â€˜I said get away! I’ll call the police! I will!’
    â€˜Call the police? What for?’
    Kenny struggled to his feet, tripped once more, got back up, and scuttled away. ‘I’m warning you, Grizzler! You stay away from me!’ he shouted, disappearing around the end of the bike shed.
    A couple of the other kids had something smart to say about the night before as he crossed the quad, but Edsel barely noticed. What he’d seen in his front garden, combined with Kenny’s rather odd behaviour, meant that he had a lot on his mind, and he ended up with his name on the board three times for not