For the Win by Cory Doctorow (interesting novels to read .txt) 📕

Lu leapt out of his chair and whooped, a sound so loud that the entire cafe turned to look at them, but they didn't care, they were all out of their seats now, whooping and dancing around and hugging each other.

And now it was the day, a new day, the sun had come up and gone down and risen in their long labor in the cafe, and they had won. It was a new day for them and for everyone around them.

They stepped out into the sun and there were people on the streets, throngs buying and selling, touts hustling, pretty girls in good clothes walking arm in arm under a single parasol. The heat of the day was like a blast furnace after the air-conditioned cool of the cafe, but that was good, too -- it baked out the funk of cigarette-mouth, coffee-mouth, no-food-mouth. Suddenly, none of them were sleepy. They all wanted to eat.

So Matthew took them out for breakfast. They were his team, after all. They took over the back table at an Indian restaurant near the train station, a place he'd overheard his uncle Yiu-Yu telling his parents about, bragging about some business associate who took him there. Very sophisticated. And he'd read so much about Indian food in his comics, he couldn't wait to try some.

All the other customers in there were either foreigners or Hong Kong people, but they didn't let that get to them. The boys sat at their back table and played with their forks and ate plate after plate of curry and fresh hot flatbreads called naan, and it was delicious and strange and the perfect end to what had turned out to be the perfect night.

Halfway through the dessert -- delicious mango ice-cream -- the sleeplessness finally caught up with them all. They sat on their seats in their torpor, hands over their bellies, eyes half-open, and Matthew called for the check.

They stepped out again into the light. Matthew had decided to go to his parents' place, to sleep on the sofa for a little while, before figuring out what to do about his smashed room with its smashed door.

As they blinked in the light, a familiar Wenjhou accented voice said, "You aren't a very smart boy, are you?"

Matthew turned. Boss Wing's man was there, and three of his friends. They rushed forward and grabbed the boys before they could react, one of them so big that he grabbed a boy in each hand and nearly lifted them off their feet.

His friends struggled to get free, but Boss Wing's man methodically slapped them until they stopped.

Matthew couldn't believe that this was happening -- in broad daylight, right here next to the train station! People crossed the street to avoid them. Matthew supposed he would have done so too.

Boss Wing's man leaned in so close Matthew could smell the fish he'd had for lunch on his breath. "Why are you a stupid boy, Matthew? You didn't seem stupid when you worked for Boss Wing. You always seemed smarter than these children." He flapped his hand disparagingly at the boys. "But Boss Wing, he trained you, sheltered you, fed you, paid you -- do you think it's honorable or fair for you to take all that investment and run out the door with it?"

"We don't owe Boss Wing anything!" Lu shouted. "You think you can make us work for him?"

Boss Wing's man shook his head. "What a little hothead. No one wants to force you to do anything, child. We just don't think it's fair for you to take all the training and investment we made in you and run across the street and start up a competing business. It's not right, and Boss Wing won't stand for it."

The curry churned in Matthew's stomach. "We have the right to start our own business." The words were braver than he felt, but these were his boys, and they gave him bravery. "If Boss Wing doesn't like the competition, let him find another line of work."

Boss Wing's man didn't give him any forewarning before he slapped Matthew so hard his head rang like a gong. He stumbled back two steps, then tripped over his heels and fell on his ass, landing on the filthy sidewalk. Boss Wing's man put a foot on his chest and looked down at him.

"Little boy, it doesn't work like that. Here's the deal -- Boss Wing understands if you don't want to work at his factory, that's fine. He's willing to sell you the franchise to set up your own branch operation of his firm. All you have to do is pay him a franchise fee of 60 percent of your gross earnings. We watched your gold-sales from Svartalfaheim. You can do as much of that kind of work as you like, and Boss Wing will even take care of the sales end of things for you, so you'll be free to concentrate on your work. And because it's your firm, you get to decide how you divide the money -- you can pay yourself anything you like out of it."

Matthew burned with shame. His friends were all looking at him, goggle eyed, scared. The weight from the foot on his chest increased until he couldn't draw a breath.

Finally, he gasped out, "Fine," and the pressure went away. Boss Wing's man extended a hand, helped him to his feet.

"Smart," he said. "I knew you were a smart boy." He turned to Matthew's friends. "Your little boss here is a smart man. He'll take you places. You listen to him now."

Then, without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away, his men following him.

This

scene is dedicated to Anderson's Bookshops, Chicago's legendary

kids' bookstore. Anderson's is an old, old family-run business, which

started out as an old-timey drug-store selling some books on the

side. Today, it's a booming, multi-location kids' book empire, with

some incredibly innovative bookselling practices that get books and

kids together in really exciting ways. The best of these is the

store's mobile book-fairs, in which they ship huge, rolling

bookcases, already stocked with excellent kids' books, direct to

schools on trucks -- voila, instant book-fair!

Anderson's

Bookshops: 123 West Jefferson,

Naperville, IL 60540 USA +1 630 355 2665

The car that had plowed into Wei-Dong's father's car was driven by a very exasperated, very tired British man, fat and bald, with two angry kids in the back seat and an angry wife in the front seat.

He was steadily, quietly cursing in British, which was a lot like cursing in American, but with a lot more "bloodies" in it. He paced the sidewalk beside the wrecked Huawei, his wife calling at him from inside the car to get back in the bloody car, Ronald, but Ronald wasn't having any of it.

Wei-Dong sat on the narrow strip of grass between the road and the sidewalk, dazed in the noon sun, waiting for his vision to stop swimming. Benny sat next to him, holding a wad of kleenex to staunch the bleeding from his broken nose, which he'd bounced off of the dashboard. Wei-Dong brought his hands up to his forehead to finger the lump there again. His hands smelled of new plastic, the smell of the airbag that he'd had to punch his way out of.

The fat man crouched next to him. "Christ, son, you look like you've been to the wars. But you'll be all right, right? Could have been much worse."

"Sir," Benny Rosenbaum said, in a quiet voice muffled by the kleenex. "Please leave us alone now. When the police come, we can all talk, all right?"

"'Course, 'course." His kids were screaming now, hollering from the back seat about getting to Disneyland, when were they getting to Disneyland? "Shut it, you monsters," he roared. The sound made Wei-Dong flinch back. He wobbled to his feet.

"Sit down, Leonard," his father said. "You shouldn't have gotten out of the car, and you certainly shouldn't be walking around now. You could have a concussion or a spinal injury. Sit down," he repeated, but Wei-Dong needed to get off the grass, needed to walk off the sick feeling in his stomach.

Uh-oh. He barely made it to the curb, hands braced on the crumpled, flaking rear section of the Huawei, before he started to barf, a geyser of used food that shot straight out of his guts and flew all over the wreck of the car. A moment later, his father's hands were on his shoulders, steadying him. Angrily, he shook them off.

There were sirens coming now, and the fat man was talking intensely to old Benny, though it was quiet enough that Wei-Dong could only make out a few words -- insurance, fault, vacation -- all in a wheedling tone. His father kept trying to get a word in, but the guy was talking over him. Wei-Dong could have told him that this wasn't a good strategy. Nothing was surer to make Volcano Benny blow. And here it came.

"Shut your mouth for a second, all right? Just SHUT IT."

The shout was so loud that even the kids in the back seat went silent.

"YOU HIT US, you goddamned idiot! We're not going to go halves on the damage. We're not going to settle this for cash. I don't care if you're jetlagged, I don't care if you didn't buy the extra insurance on your rental car, I don't care if this will ruin your vacation. You could have killed us, you understand that, moron?"

The man held up his hands and cringed behind them. "You were parked in the middle of the road, mate," he said, a note of pleading in his voice.

Everyone was watching them, the kids and the guy's wife, the rubberneckers who slowed down to see the accident. The two men were totally focused on each other.

In other words, no one was watching Wei-Dong.

He thought about the sound his earwig made, crunching under his father's steel-toed shoe, heard the sirens getting closer, and...

He...

Left.

He sidled away toward the shrubs that surrounded a mini-mall and gas-station, nonchalant, clutching his school-bag, like he was just getting his bearings, but he was headed toward a gap there, a narrow one that he just barely managed to squeeze through. He popped through into the parking lot around the mini-mall, filled with stores selling $3 t-shirts and snow-globes and large bottles of filtered water. On this side of the shrubs, the world was normal and busy, filled with tourists on their way to or from Disneyland.

He picked up his pace, keeping his face turned away from the stores and the CCTV cameras outside of them. He felt in his pocket, felt the few dollars there. He had to get away, far away, fast, if he was going to get away at all.

And there was his salvation, the tourist bus that rolled through the streets of the Anaheim Resort District, shuttling people from hotels to restaurants to the parks, crowded with sugared-up kids and conventioneers with badges hanging around their necks, and it was trundling to the stop just a few yards away. He broke into a run, stumbled from the pain that seared through his head like a lightning bolt, then settled for walking as quickly as he could. The sirens were very, very loud now, right there on the other side of the shrubs, and he was almost at the bus and there was his father's voice, calling his name and there was