Читать онлайн "Freshman Year - Box Set" - Younger Greg - RuLit

DESCRIPTION: The first novel in a brand-new series, A Stupid Boy Story, from award-winning author G. Younger about a small Midwestern town filled with cute girls, Friday night football games, and life lessons that stir up some major drama and fun.

To everyone who knows him, David Dawson is your stereotypical nerd, the good kid who has a great family life and good friends. A cute girl, way out of his league—according to his friends—leads him astray. His sudden shift to hanging out with the wrong crowd sends him spiraling into teenage depression and upsets his best friends. It all comes to a sudden end when a girl at a party he throws almost dies.

It is his crucible. Crucible is a great word. It means to go through a severe test. For David, it means he must take responsibility for his actions. He is sent to his uncle’s farm for the summer to get his life back on track. What he doesn’t know is his uncle John has a degree in child psychology. With a combination of hard work and long talks, he begins to pull his life back together.

When he returns from his exile, he’s changed. He is no longer the slightly pudgy-looking nerd due to a growth spurt and hard work on the farm. His best friend, Tami Glade, isn’t quite sure what to make of her ‘stupid boy.’ Before he was sent to the farm, she’d screamed at him out of frustration that she never wanted to see him again.

David has changed. He is suddenly popular, way too handsome for his own good, and going out for football. The changes aren’t just physical. He seems more confident and focused. He even has Life Goals. Tami isn’t quite sure what to make of the new David. Her ‘stupid boy’ of a best friend has been transformed into a hunk. The problem is, he doesn’t realize it, and she isn’t sure if they should be just friends, or more.

Chapter 1 – Change Does a Body Good

Monday August 26

I woke to the sound of my bedroom window rattling. Was someone breaking in? A flash of lightning almost blinded me as it lit up my room. I waited several seconds and then the rumble of thunder rolled in. Rain began to pelt the roof and the wind started to gust as a black wall of clouds moved in to blot out the morning sun. The weather fit my mood: I felt depressed. It didn’t help that my head was pounding. I always seemed to get a headache when a cold front came through due to the change in barometric pressure.

I looked at the clock by my bed and the neon-blue numbers said it was 6:59. I knew I had something important to do today, but for a moment I couldn’t get the fog out of my mind. I wasn’t a morning person, but something told me I needed to get up. I heard my mom holler at my brother and me.

“Get your butts out of bed, you have school today.”

There was another flash of lightning and much quicker rumble. The storm was getting closer. My first day of high school and I was going to get drenched running to the bus.

I heard my older brother get to the bathroom before I did. Great, he was worse than having a sister. He would hog the bathroom until it was time to go. We shared a bathroom between our two rooms. To heck with it, I had to pee. When I heard the shower start, I walked into a wall of steam that escaped from the shower. My brother Greg jerked the shower curtain back. His dark brown hair was plastered to his head and I saw his blue-gray eyes communicate my impending doom.

“You flush it and you die.”

My evil grin made him nervous. The plumbing in our home was terrible. We live in an old Victorian-style house, circa 1925. Our neighborhood had been the upscale section of town back in the day. Over the years, many of these large homes had gone into disrepair.

In the mid-2000s a revival came when the housing boom occurred. These old Victorians had a lot of square footage and natural wood floors under layers of carpet and padding. It became very profitable to buy and flip them. My mom, being in real estate, saw the potential and talked Dad into buying this one. For the past ten years, we had worked on this home to bring it back to its former glory. The plumbing was from a renovation in the 1960s. Obviously, they hadn’t done a very good job. If you flushed the toilet, the shower would go scalding hot.

“What are you going to do for me if I don’t?” I challenged my big brother.

“I’ll make this easy for you: I won’t beat your butt!”

Well now, he thought he was a tough guy today. I loved pulling his chain, but I needed a favor. I was in no mood for the bus, so I got a serious look.

“The last time we wrestled, I won. I’m not really all that scared. You’ll have to make me a better offer.”

Since mid-spring, I had hit my growth spurt. I grew a little over six inches and put on thirty pounds. I was now over six feet tall and 185 pounds. My brother was three years older, five-ten and 175 pounds. On Saturday, I caught him unaware and tackled him from behind. It was a game that we’d played since we were little boys. To our mother’s bewilderment we had fallen right back into it when I came home. I’d reached for his wrist to try to put him into a submission hold. Luckily, I had grabbed his thumb. As I bent it back, he squealed like a little girl. I held on for dear life, knowing if he broke free, I was dead. To my surprise, he surrendered. This was my first clear victory in almost a year. I felt it necessary to gloat.

Greg started to step out of the shower and I decided to try another strategy.

“Hang on. I don’t want to have to wrestle you into submission, especially with you all wet and naked!”