Read Online The Weapon (The Hourglass Series Book 2) by Casey Donaldson - Free Book Online Page B

voice. They all flinched, turning around, only this time it wasn’t
Boulder. It was one of the guards. “Hey!” He yelled again.
    They
ran. They didn’t stop, slow down, or look back until they had been out of sight
for at least five minutes. Hutch brought them to a halt. He looked behind them.
    “Nothing,”
he said.
“Oh thank god,” said Bettina, falling to the ground, puffing heavily.
    Sarah
could only nod, her own hands were on her knees, trying to regulate her
breathing.
    Then,
to everyone’s surprise, Jaz started laughing. She was laughing so hard that
tears were coming out of her eyes. “That,” she wheezed, “was so, fun.”
    They
couldn’t help it. They laughed too. It was then that Boulder walked up to the
group, apple still in hand. Clearly he hadn’t gotten into trouble about it.
    “What’s
so funny?” he asked.
    It
set them off even more.
    The
bell for lunch rang. It turned out that pretty much the whole camp had already
heard how one of the new recruits had shot one of his team mates. An older
recruit walked by with one of his buddies. “Oh look,” he said, nudging his friend,
“they’re the ones I was telling you about. The Losers.” It was said with a
capital L.
    “Hey,”
began Hutch defensively, but his jaw dropped open as he saw something behind
Sarah, and anything else he was going to say was wiped from his mind. The two
older boys saw it too, their jaws also dropping.
    “Oh
you are kidding me,” said the one who had called them losers. “This is just
perfect. This team couldn’t get any worse.”
    Sarah
swung around, trying to see what they had spotted. It didn’t take her long.
    It
was Finn.
    He
had died his hair yellow.
    Not
blond, but yellow. Daisy, bumblebee yellow.
    She
felt her own jaw drop. The Sarg was going to kill him. He was drawing stares
all around him as me made his way to their table. Once he reached it the
laughter started.
    “You
guys,” said Hutch, his voice strained. “You’re killing me.”
    “What
did you do that for?” asked Sarah, still completely astounded.
    “You
heard the Sarg,” said Finn, looking far too complacent for Sarah’s liking. “He
said to fix my hair, so I fixed it.”
    “Where
did you even get that?” she asked. “And what is it?”
    Finn
took a large mouthful of mashed potato before replying. “Food dye.”
    “Oh
thank god,” said Hutch. “That washes out, right? We can just wash it out before
the Sarg sees you. And kills you. Kills us all.”
    “It
won’t work,” said Jaz, equally mortified. “His hair’s white. The dye is going
to stain. We might be able to make it less bright, but it’s yellow now.”
    “Then
we’ll shave his head,” said Hutch, determined.
    “Whoa,
hold on a second,” said Finn, “you aren’t touching my hair.” He looked a bit
worried now.
    Good,
thought Sarah. He should be.
    Boulder
snorted a noseful of mashed potato down the table as he tried not to laugh and
failed.
    “Eugh,”
said Bettina, trying to avoid the mash-snot, “that’s disgusting.”
    But
Boulder had set them all off again. Sarah finally saw the funny side and
started laughing too, even Hutch gave in.
    “You’ve
got to admit,” said Finn, enjoying the attention, “it’s going to be funny when
he sees it.”
     

Chapter Thirteen
     
    By
the time lunch ended they were officially known as the Loser Team. To make
matters worse, it was decided that instead of an afternoon spent learning how
to survive in a war zone, they were punished for Gillie’s mistake and made to
run laps around the parade ground. Their misery was compounded when they found
out that they were to be supervised by Dylan, the boy who had started the “Team
Loser” tag during the lunchbreak.
    And
it didn’t help that the Sarg finally caught sight of Finn’s hair. The Sarg
happened to be walking by at the same time they were hustled to the parade
ground. Sarah would have laughed at his double take if he didn’t look like he
could kill them all