Read Online Take It Off by J. Minter - Free Book Online Page B

ear. She sort of nuzzled at it, too. Patch was feeling restless and kind of irritable. He tried to push her away gently.
    â€œIt’s cool,” he said.
    Patch liked spending time with Stephanie—she had been a lot of places, she was down for anything, she was pretty physical, and those were all things people said about Patch. Plus, he usually went out with stunning, haughty women who were always complicated, and Stephanie was just fun and not like that.
    She made a little pouting face and went back to chatting with the minister of tourism and his deputy.
    The sixth and final fight was about to take place, and Patch was ready for it to be over. He’d already watched five bulls get killed in roughly the same way, and the whole thing seemed pretty Medieval to him. The fighters themselves teased the bulls and then hid behind these big protective fences, and they never really got close to them until after a guy on a horse, with a lot of armor on, came out and stabbed the bull in the back twice. This was about to happen again.
    Down the row, the minister of tourism was describing the beautiful dance of death that they were watching,and Stephanie kept going “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” and “Wow.” Patch couldn’t listen anymore, so he let his eyes drift across the crowd. Then he heard some familiar voices.
    â€œOh, you’re looking for Jonathan? I just saw him, like, come with me,” a girl was saying. “Do you have any cigarettes? Everybody here is smoking, and even though I really
shouldn’t
, I really want one.”
    â€œNope, sorry,” a guy’s voice said. “I’ll still take a Jonathan, though.” That was definitely Mickey.
    Patch looked down and saw Sara-Beth Benny coming out from the arcades and into the seating area. She was carrying two beers in plastic cups. Behind her were Mickey, and Suki’s friend Greta. Patch couldn’t help noticing that Greta was sunburned. He wanted to wave at them and call them over, but when he saw the beer he realized that it would be best to try to keep them away from Barker.
    â€œI just saw them,” Sara-Beth was saying. “Where is he? You can come sit with us, too, of course. I’m with Loki. He’s an RA, so don’t tell anyone!”
    â€œThanks, that’s cool, but we just need to find Jonathan,” Mickey said, sounding a little impatient, the way he would if he were talking to a drunk person. “You should probably think about getting back to the boat, too—it’s getting sort of late.”
    Sara-Beth just giggled. They had gotten to the edge of the seats, right above the bullfighters, and she was craning her neck around, apparently trying to locate Jonathan. Patch doubted he was there—Jonathan would never go for something like this—but he couldn’t say anything, of course, because it would call attention to Sara-Beth and her beers. Her eyes were scanning across the crowd, and then they fell on Patch and Stephanie’s group. Her eyes got very wide and she jerked backward awkwardly. She hit the guardrail—which was, rather frighteningly, only about a foot and a half high—and flipped over it onto the bullfighting field.
    Everyone in the stadium stood up and let out a collective gasp.
    â€œOh, my God,” Stephanie cried out, “that’s Sara-Beth!”
    â€œA very special student, an American television star,” Barker was saying as if to, absurdly, fill in the minister of tourism.
    â€œOhhh … these situations make me feel awful,” the minister replied confidentially, his voice quavering.
    â€œDo something!” Stephanie shrieked as she grabbed Patch’s arm.
    Patch hurried through the stunned crowd and took a look over the edge. All the bullfighters, as well as thebull, were on the other side of the arena. But the bull had sensed the crowd’s excitement and was moving curiously in Sara-Beth’s direction. He also seemed