Read Online The Kid Who Became President by Dan Gutman - Free Book Online Page A

it to the Lincoln Memorial and back in less than an hour. We must have been a sight, this enormous bald-headed black man jogging with a skinny thirteen-year-old white boy. Trailing behind us was always a car with Secret Service agents inside holding the football.
    Each morning, Agent Doe led me on a different route. He said that if we went the same way every day, it would be easier for somebody to try to harm me. It seemed ridiculous, but when it came to security, Agent Doe was my boss.
    As we jogged, little by little he told me about himself. He was from California. He’d never met his father, he said. His mom couldn’t afford to send him to college, so he put himself through school by working as a bouncer in a bar. A bouncer is a big guy who breaks up fights and kicks out people who get rowdy.
    He didn’t like that job, so he joined the Army. He fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his bravery was noticed by one of the generals. Soon Doe was with the Secret Service.
    I guess they figured he was so big that if some nut ever tried to shoot the president, Agent Doe would make the perfect human shield. Still, he said he’d always had a weight problem. Several times he had received warnings about it from the head of the Secret Service.
    He didn’t have any brothers or sisters, and he never got married. When I asked him why not, he said he was “married to his job.”
    From the start, I had been bugging Agent Doe about teaching me some martial arts. I had taken a few tae kwon do classes when I was younger and learned a few moves, but he was an expert.
    â€œDid you ever hurt anybody really badly?” I asked as we jogged past the Washington Monument early one morning.
    â€œYes,” he puffed. “But only in self-defense, Mr. President.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œIt was in the bar, sir,” he said. “Some guy got drunk and was bothering people. I asked him politely to leave. He wouldn’t. So I asked him again, a little less politely. He smashed a bottle against the bar and came at me with it. I had to subdue him.”
    â€œWhat did you do?”
    â€œOh, I know a few tricks, sir.”
    â€œWill you teach them to me?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t know about that, sir,” he huffed. “They’re very dangerous.”
    â€œPlease?” I begged.
    â€œAs long as I’m around, sir, you don’t need to bother yourself with that stuff.”
    I kept after Agent Doe, begging and pleading him to show me his martial arts techniques. I threatened to have him thrown into the White House pool again. I just about used my executive power to force him to spill the beans.
    I wore him down, I guess. Finally, he agreed to teach me the secret of how to disable a man in three seconds.
    After a morning jog, we went up to the roof of the White House, where there was plenty of room for hand-to-hand combat and nobody around to disturb us.
    â€œCan I hit you really hard?” I asked before we got started.
    â€œGo ahead, sir,” Agent Doe said. “But you don’t have to use all your strength to immobilize a man.”
    I took a little running start and gave him my best shot, a reverse knife-hand strike right below the chest. I wasn’t expecting to knock him down or anything, but I thought I might be able to rock him back a little.
    Nothing doing. It was like hitting a refrigerator.
    â€œOwww!” I yelled, shaking my hand.
    â€œMr. President, are you okay?” Agent Doe rushed to comfort me.
    â€œI’ll be fine,” I grimaced.
    â€œIf you get hurt, I’m in big trouble, sir.”
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” I assured him.
    â€œYou’re just a little guy, sir, so you shouldn’t go running and charging at big guys like me,” he explained. “Let me show you something that might work better — the Secret Ninja Death Touch.”
    â€œYeah!” I agreed excitedly. “The Secret Ninja Death