Read Online The Limit by Kristen Landon - Free Book Online Page A

anything,” said Jeffery.
    Henry draped one arm around my shoulder and turned me to the door. “Let’s go get you caught up on the way things roll here on the top floor. Maybe a little tour? You up to playing tour guide, Jeffery?”
    “Go ahead,” the short kid said, waving us off as he headed out the door. “Have fun with your new best buddy, Coop.”
    “Coop? I thought your name was Henry.”
    “Cooper. Henry Cooper. I don’t like Henry. You eat yet, bro?”
    “Dinner? No. And it’s Matt.”
    He must have forgotten.
    “Well, come on, bro. Let’s go order us an extra-large with pepperoni and get you some gym clothes.”
    Long strings of chewy mozzarella stretched between my teeth and the piece of pizza in my hand. Lifting it high, I drizzled cheese into my mouth and chewed fast. Across the table Coop smiled through the long strands of mozzarella hanging off his chin.
    “Maybe we shouldn’t have ordered triple cheese,” I said after managing to swallow.
    “Naw, this is the only way to go.” Coop gulped down a swig of soda on top of his food.
    We’d had the pizza delivered to my bedroom.
    My bedroom. What an understatement. It was practically an apartment—my own bachelor pad. If only I could invite the guys from school here for a few minutes to let them see how I was going to be living now. Talk about one-upping—this was more like ten-upping, or twenty-upping. Nobody was ever going to beat me. The only thing this place didn’t have was a kitchen, but who needed one? Top Floors ordered all their meals over the computer, like I’d done downstairs.
    Speaking of meals: “I think tomorrow I’ll order some of the barbecue that guy in the glass cubicle had delivered to him. Sure smelled good. What’s with that guy anyway? Why would you want to eat dinner in your cubicle? Unless he’s got something amazing hidden behind those blinds.”
    “Nothing could be amazing enough to keep me boxed up all day long. This is as much as I can take.” He knocked the side of his fist against the big window next to us at the table, which had a great view of the lush lawns and thick trees we’d never be able to run through without first filling out a pile of forms. “At least we have the paddle-wall-ball court.” Coop stood and walked over to the remote control sitting on the arm of the leather sofa. He punched a button and changed the channel on the huge flat screen on my wall from a music video to a sports program. I’d have a clear view of the TV screen from my bed, too, if I ever decided to watch from there.
    “That guy—what’s his name?—he stays in his cubicle
all day
?”
    “All day, every day,” said Coop, going for another piece of pizza. “Miss Smoot calls him Reginald. The rest of us just call him nutcase.”
    “He has to come out sometime. To sleep? To go to the bathroom. He’s
got
to go to the bathroom.”
    “Maybe he has a bladder the size of the swimmingpool.” Coop picked a huge chunk of sausage off his slice and popped it into his mouth. “He does come out at night. He sleeps in his room. Does other things in there too, a little. Haven’t figured out what yet.”
    “Why don’t you just ask him?”
    Coop sputtered out a laugh, spewing tiny flecks of half-chewed mozzarella and pepperoni. Good thing the table was big enough that none of it reached me.
    “Ask him? Bro, nobody talks to Reginald. When he’s working in that glass box of his, it’s like . . . sacred. You can’t disturb him unless the workhouse is on fire—and even then it’s iffy. Once Isaac—who’s in the cubie next to him—knocked on his glass door and tried to invite him to come play laser tag in the gym with him and Kia. Reginald didn’t make a sound, and within a minute one of the security dudes was up here cutting Isaac down.”
    “Okay, then, no biggie. Just ask him when he comes out.”
    “Right.” Dropping the remainder of his slice onto the table with a splat, Coop leaned forward on his elbows. “If you