Read Online The Fourth Stall Part III by Chris Rylander - Free Book Online

in the day,” he said. “It’s always been tough. Kids there like to . . . well, assert themselves a little more than usual, I guess. That’s part of why I want to get her out of there. I mean, going to that school and living with those foster parents . . . that’s two strikes against her having a good childhood and turning out happy as an adult.”
    I nodded.
    â€œMakes sense,” Vince agreed.
    â€œIf I get custody of her, then she can go to your school, since I live in your district. You guys like it there, right?”
    I laughed.
    Staples gave me a confused look in the rearview.
    â€œThings are great there,” Vince assured him. “Mac’s laughing because we turned ourselves in, exposed our business last year—something we’d never thought we’d do—all because of how much kids love that school. So, yeah, I think Abby would be much better off there than Thief Valley.”
    Staples nodded but didn’t say anything else for a while.
    â€œWell, if I told my grandma about this, she’d probably say, ‘Just don’t ever trust a person with three hands. It may seem neat that they have three hands and all, but I ain’t never met a mutie that had a conscience. I also ain’t never met one that didn’t own a lobster for a pet; those muties sure love their lobsters. But don’t ever trust a person that gives a name to a lobster neither.’”
    â€œMutie?” I managed to ask while laughing so hard I almost kicked the back of Vince’s seat.
    â€œYeah, it’s what she calls mutants . . . which to her are basically anybody who doesn’t look like they could have starred in The Brady Bunch . Like, at the mall this one time we saw this kid with a Mohawk, not a fake one like tools wear but a real one, like two-foot-high spikes and the sides shaved to bare skin. She just kept screaming, ‘Mutie! Mutie! Someone check its pockets to see if it’s got papers!’ I don’t even know what she meant by that, but I was too busy laughing to ask her.”
    â€œMan, your grandma is the best,” I said through more laughter.
    Even Staples was laughing now, too.
    Then suddenly he hit the brakes and swerved the car to the curb, nearly taking out a mailbox.
    â€œHey, you guys want some lemonade?” he said, pointing to a few younger kids with a lemonade stand on the street corner ahead of us. “Come on. This is exactly the sort of thing that Big Brothers were invented for.”
    We all got out of the car and approached a small table sitting on the sidewalk in front of a house. A couple of younger kids selling lemonade sat behind it. While it was kind of weird how suddenly Staples had pulled over for this, I couldn’t deny that on a scorching, early-fall day like today some ice-cold lemonade would be pretty awesome.
    Two small girls and one boy sat behind the table. They were probably third graders, give or take a year. They had a handmade cardboard sign taped to the front of the table that read: “Ice Cold Lemon-Aid Only $3 Bucks!! A Bargan! Clearance!!!” Three dollars was definitely a little steep for this neighborhood but whatever. They’d figure out how proper pricing could maximize their profit eventually.
    Staples ordered three glasses. They poured iceless lemonade into three tiny Dixie cups, and then one of the girls said, “Nine dollars, dude.”
    Staples grinned and handed her a ten-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”
    We downed our too-small drinks. And I almost had to spit mine out. Not only was it not ice-cold, but it was warm. And it was terrible. Given its color and consistency and temperature, I couldn’t be positive that what we’d just drunk wasn’t actually some kid’s pee with lemon flavoring.
    â€œYuck!” Vince said while grimacing.
    Staples also spit out his nasty lemonade, but he didn’t get upset like Vince and I