Houdini and Me by Dan Gutman (large screen ebook reader txt) 📕

no. Simon always made sure of that. Bullies always manage to get you when you’re alone.

Why couldn’t this have happened five minutes before? Simon never would have messed with me if Zeke had been around. It would have been two against one. Simon probably saw Zeke come down the steps and figured I’d be heading home the same way.

I thought that maybe if I didn’t make eye contact with Simon, he’d leave me alone. Wishful thinking.

“Well, well, well,” he said, a stupid smirk on his face.

Simon is bigger than me. Not much bigger, but big enough to win a fight with me. Not that I know how to fight. When I was little, my mother suggested I take karate lessons. I talked her into letting me take a magic class instead.

“What do you want, Simon?” I asked, knowing full well what he wanted.

“For starters, you could loan me five bucks,” Simon replied.

Loan him. Ha! As if I would ever see that money again.

“I don’t have five bucks,” I lied.

I knew I had twenty dollars in my pocket, because that’s what I was prepared to pay for my cell phone charger before the lady in the store gave it to me for free. But why should I give my money to Simon? Grown-ups are always telling us that we should stand up for ourselves. Simon had no right to take my money.

“All I find I keep?” Simon asked.

Oh, the classic “all I find I keep” line. Bullies have been using that one for centuries, I bet. They make it seem like it’s your fault that they’re robbing you.

Simon reached for my pants pockets, and I slapped his hand away. That got him mad, and he grabbed my hand.

If I was really cool, I would have kneed him in the face when he leaned over to reach for my pocket. Then I would have jammed my elbow into the back of his head to make him fall forward, tumble back down the steps, and beg for mercy when I’d come after him for more.

But I’m not really cool.

“Get your hands off me!” I shouted as he tried to get at my pockets with his other hand.

“So you do have five bucks,” Simon said. “I knew you were a liar, Mancini.”

Yeah, I’m a liar. So I guess he’s entitled to take my money.

I didn’t care about the money. He could take my money. But I didn’t want him to find my flip phone. What a dope I was to carry it around with me all day. I protected my right back pocket.

Simon grabbed my arm and twisted it. He put his other hand over my mouth so I couldn’t call out for help. I struggled to get free, but he was too strong for me.

“Don’t make this hard on yourself, Mancini,” he said. “It’s just five bucks.”

“Let go!” I tried to shout.

I stomped on his foot hard, and I guess that took him by surprise because he released his grip on my arm. He wasn’t used to me fighting back. I usually just give him the money.

He was really mad now. He wrapped his right arm tightly around my chest and was grabbing at my back pockets.

“There must be something pretty valuable in here or you wouldn’t be fighting so hard,” he mumbled into my ear.

I tried to cover my right pocket with my hand, but he got to it first. He reached in and pulled out my flip phone. As soon as he got a look at it, he let go of me and doubled over laughing.

“Are you kidding me?” he said, barely able to control himself. “This is what you were fighting for?”

“Give it back, Simon!” I shouted, pretending to be assertive.

“What are you gonna do with this,” he asked. “Call the 1990s?”

Then he opened the phone and pretended to talk into it.

“Hello 1990s?” he asked. “I have one of your cell phones. Do you need it?”

“Give it back, Simon!” I shouted.

“Maybe I will and maybe I won’t,” he said. “Maybe if you give me the five bucks I politely asked for, I’ll give back your antique phone.”

I thought about giving him the five bucks. I could just give him the money and he’d give me my phone back. What’s the big deal? I was going to pay more than five bucks for the phone charger anyway. But I just couldn’t do it this time. It was the principle of the thing.

“No,” I said firmly, trying to snatch the phone out of his hand. He yanked it away.

“Okay, then nobody gets it,” Simon said. He reared back and heaved the phone into the woods.

“Noooooo!” I shouted.

I desperately tried to follow the trajectory of the phone until it landed in some bushes. Then I ran off in that direction.

“Ha!” Simon said. “Play fetch, Mancini.”

Simon walked away, cackling the whole time like the jerk he is.

I spent about a half an hour searching through the bushes. It wasn’t easy, because the ground is really steep. Also, the sun was getting lower in the sky and it was starting to get dark out. I didn’t think I would ever find my phone. But finally, miraculously, I kicked a clump of leaves and there it was. I grabbed it and tapped the power button.

Thankfully, it turned on.

METAMORPHOSIS

I spent a lot of time working on my math homework when I got home, but I just couldn’t focus on it. I was thinking about Houdini the whole time. He told me he was going to contact me that night, but I didn’t know when.

The more I thought about texting with Houdini, the more I thought how crazy it all was. Maybe Zeke was right. Maybe Houdini was some kind of imaginary father figure to me. Maybe I was the son he never had. Maybe I was crazy.

And then, just before ten o’clock…

Bzzzzz…bzzzzz…bzzzzz…

Yes!

I yanked open the drawer of my night table and grabbed the flip phone.

“HARRY?” it said on the