Read Online Game by Walter Dean Myers - Free Book Online Page A

that’s wrong,” I said.
    â€œYou know, Tony’s lawyer can still cop a plea if he wants,” Ruffy said. “If he cops, he’ll get three to five.”
    â€œIf he doesn’t cop?”
    â€œThey got about seven charges. The max looks like fifteen years.”
    A fifteen-year bid is too cold to even think about. We didn’t talk any more on the way home.

 
    I t was just before lunch, and me, Ricky, and our boy Domingo were sitting in the media center trying to find his house on the website where you can locate areas from a satellite. While we looked, we were also running down our viewpoints about girls, because Ricky had some funny ideas.
    â€œThe reason Puerto Rican girls are the best-looking is that we got the best mixture,” Ricky said. “We got African blood, Spanish blood, and just the right mixture of Taino, which is Indian. That’s what gives Puerto Rican mamas that delicate look.”
    â€œThey look delicate, but they can’t touch girlsfrom the Dominican Republic, because our girls are deep, and when you see a girl from the DR, all of that comes right through her eyes,” Domingo said. “You can even ask Drew, and he’s not from the DR.”
    â€œAsk me?” I looked at Domingo to see if he was serious and saw that he was. “I’ve never said anything about girls from the DR being so fine.”
    â€œYeah, but you’re honest, man,” Domingo said. Just as he was talking, Colin came over and sat down at our table.
    â€œThat my neighborhood!” Ricky pointed to the computer screen.
    We tried to home in on his house, but he couldn’t recognize the streets from the top view. Then he wanted to switch to this girl’s house he was trying to get next to.
    â€œSee if we can find her house, and then I’ll tell her I used to live over there,” Ricky said.
    â€œYo, Colin, who do you think are the best-looking”—Domingo held his hands up like he was settling something serious—“Puerto Rican girls or Dominican girls?”
    â€œHow come black girls aren’t in there?” I asked.
    â€œI think Irish girls are the best-looking,” Colin said.
    â€œYo, he got to say that,” Ricky cracked. “My man is trying to hold up his peeps. But show me one Irish girl in this school who’s really smoking!”
    â€œThere aren’t any Irish girls in this school,” Colin said.
    â€œThat’s because they can’t stand the competition!” Ricky said.
    That was stupid, but I liked it anyway. We messed around some more, dissing each other’s women until the period ended. Me and Domingo started out toward the lunchroom, Ricky had to go and get another battery for his cell, and Colin was rapping with the media teacher. House saw me in the hall and came over.
    â€œHey, Drew, you headed for lunch?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œCome on, I’ll treat you to some decent food,” he said. “We can go to Tacky’s.”
    Tacky’s was the name everybody gave to La Taqueria, a Mexican restaurant that had just opened in the hood. It looked kind of expensive, so I had never eaten there, but some of the teachers talkedabout it like it was special.
    When House asked me if I wanted to have lunch with him, I froze a little. We had been avoiding each other most of the time and I didn’t know what to expect. But I don’t back down, so I said okay.
    The restaurant was only two blocks away, and on the way over he was talking about how the neighborhood was improving.
    â€œFive years ago you couldn’t walk around here for all the crackheads,” he said. “And in the evenings I used to worry about the players getting home safe.”
    â€œYeah, well, things change,” I said, knowing how lame I sounded.
    The thing was that I didn’t like House, but I knew I had to get along with him because that was the way things were, as Fletch said. House was