Buster, Caleb Huett [great novels .TXT] 📗

bedroom door before either of us was awake the next morning.

“The front door was unlocked,” she explained when our eyes were open.

Tonio blinked at her, groggy. “Yeah?”

“Mhm.” A quick pat on my sleepy head. “Hey, Buster.” I yawned gratefully. She held out a copy of the tournament flyer while Tonio sat up, clutching his blanket up to his throat like a princess in a movie. “Have you seen this?”

“Devon gave you one, too?”

“What? No. It was sitting on top of the food I give the dogs. Three hundred dollars! Just for playing a game!”

“Winning a game,” Tonio corrected.

Mia waved her hands around dismissively. “I saw the word Beamblade in your journal a lot.” She grabbed a shirt from Tonio’s closet and threw it for him to catch.

“How much of my sketchbook did you—”

“You have to teach me!” She opened one of his drawers—much to Tonio’s dismay—and rummaged through it. “Do you only own cargo shorts?”

I watched horror crawl across his face. “Are cargo shorts … bad?”

“This is Bellville. How many people are actually going to compete, like four?” She threw one of his identical pairs of shorts onto the bed. “If we both enter, that’s twice the chance of winning.”

Tonio tossed the blanket off and found a bandanna to push his morning hair back. “The rules are all on the internet.”

“I guess, but I can’t practice on the internet. And I want to win the tournament, like you said. So I need more than just to know the rules.” Mia sat on his windowsill and looked out over Bellville Square. “Plus, I looked it up, and Beamblade cards cost money, which is ridiculous. I thought you’d probably have some.”

Yes! I thought. They’ll practice together and become better friends. And then he won’t have to be scared of talking to Devon. Everything’s working out exactly like I planned!

“I don’t have any cards,” Tonio confessed. Her face fell, and his eyes widened. He didn’t want to disappoint her. “But my dad does, I think. In storage.”

“That’s perfect! Where is he? Let’s go ask him.”

Tonio’s eyes worked on finding the exact corners of his room. “He’s busy, at work, so I don’t really want to bother him …”

Finally, Mia noticed how uncomfortable he was acting. “What’s your deal?” she asked. “I thought you liked Beamblade.”

“I do.” His hands clenched the fabric on the inside of his (huge) pockets. “But I can’t do the tournament.”

“Why not?”

“My anxiety.”

“Still?”

Tonio was so surprised at her response that he half laughed.

“Uh, yeah. I guess, still.” He could tell she wanted more, so he looked for a clearer explanation. “I just can’t. Devon will be there, and I don’t want to … you know.”

Mia nodded seriously. “You don’t want to give him another Mountain Dew bath.”

Tonio gasped. “I co—I didn—I do not drink Mountain Dew!”

“Okay.” Mia walked through the open doorway and started down the stairs while she continued. Tonio had no real choice but to follow her, and I stuck to his heels. “I get that. Totally. So you don’t have to do the tournament! I’ll actually play. You’ll supply the cards and teach me. I won’t split it fifty-fifty with you anymore, of course, but I’m sure we can work something out.”

Tonio paused at their front door—her intent was obviously to go straight down to the grocery and ask Mr. Pulaski, but Tonio wasn’t sure.

“Come on!” Mia put on a pair of sunglasses and tucked her hands into the pockets of her jean shorts. “There’s gotta be something you need money for, right? Something hopefully a lot less expensive than three hundred dollars?”

He does, I thought, and I watched him realize it, too.

“There’s this card—”

“Perfect!” She grinned. “Let’s go find your dad.”

“Welcome, traveler, to the groceries of tomorrow!”

A short fiberglass man in a cartoonish space suit held a ray gun above his head but wasn’t looking where he was pointing it. Dangerous. I could tell his smile used to be as bright white as his spandex, but a thin layer of grime had settled over it in the—I gave a long sniff—more than ten years it had been there.

A few feet away from the welcoming spaceman was a silver UFO with a green plastic “tractor beam” dangling fresh peaches in a way that made them look like they were being lifted from the basket. OUT OF THIS WORLD PRICES, a sparkling sign proclaimed.

The building was unusually dark for a grocery store. Tonio’s dad had stuck to the sci-fi theme so tightly that most of the lighting was LED strips and black lights. An electric globe hung from the ceiling, and the oceans beamed a soft white glow around the cat food and laundry detergent.

Mr. Pulaski wasn’t working the registers, but he wasn’t difficult to find. He was more than happy to unlock the storeroom for us to get his old cards.

“Your cards are all called ancient cards now,” Mia told him.

Mr. Pulaski made a face like he’d been punched in the stomach. “They’re already ancient?”

Mia pulled down a box that he pointed at. “Luckily, this tournament allows them. Even the extremely old ones like these.”

Tonio patted his dad on the back and tried to soothe his distress. “You’re not that old, Dad. They just use that word because it sounds cool.”

While they looked through the storeroom to find all the cards they could from Mr. Pulaski’s college years, I had my mind on other things: a plan to prove to Tonio, once and for all, that I was just a normal dog.

So far I had made two big mistakes. One: I’d given myself away a little too much when we were in training. Two: I’d let Tonio see me on the computer. The first one I had to do, but the second was a real problem. I had made a mistake, and I did not want to go back to Dog Court. No offense.

Tonio was a smart kid, and if he connected the dots, I’d be in trouble. To keep everything under control, I