Buster, Caleb Huett [great novels .TXT] 📗

of his dad’s cards to illustrate the different elements. “And I don’t want to look like I’m too far ahead.”

That got a big grin from Mia, who pointed a card at him in accusation. “You know you’re better than the rest of the class!”

“That’s not true,” Tonio sputtered, embarrassed. “I can only draw what I see. So, each of the elements has a different play style, and you can also do a combination of—”

“Why is that bad?”

“Doing combo decks? I guess it’s not, if you know how to balance—”

“You know what I meant!” she snapped. Tonio gulped.

“The people who draw Beamblade cards draw all kinds of things that aren’t real. I’m not really creative like they are.” He shrugged. “Squirrels are boring.”

“If you say so.” Mia pointed at the Beateor spell, which the card described as a “musical missile.” “I want to do those cards. The red ones.”

Tonio smiled to himself, his guess confirmed. “Those use Scorched Manabytes, and they’re all about strong attacks.”

Mia immediately began searching through Mr. Pulaski’s boxes for all the red cards. “What about you?”

Tonio’s hand hovered over the four remaining cards. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “I like all of them.”

“Well, what do the other ones do?”

“Green uses Buried Manabytes, and it’s all about growing over time, and defending. Blue is, like, the spooky one. Its Manabytes are called Drowned, and there are zombies and ghosts and stuff, ways to get cards back that you’ve already used. Yellow is Windswept, and they’re all about a ton of tiny, fast creatures and spells. Grays are called Suspended Manabytes, and …” He picked up Principia, the Galaxy’s Reflection. “I think I’ll do these.”

“Great!” Mia spread out all the red cards she’d found, in a big fan on the carpet. “Let’s find the good ones.”

Last on the list was eating chocolate. I couldn’t actually eat it, but I had to look like I was going to eat it, just in time for Tonio to swoop in, save me, and convince himself I was nothing more than an adorable four-legged best friend.

I knew there had to be chocolate in the house somewhere—Mrs. Pulaski loved all kinds of snack food, so I knew I could find a bar of chocolate. Or at least some baking chocolate. Or hot chocolate powder. Or something!!

I sniffed around at the doorway to the kitchen (with my farsmelled nose it was easier to search the kitchen from there than digging around in the cupboards) and realized, to my dismay, that the only chocolate smell in the entire kitchen was leftover Halloween candy from the year before, still stuck in a jack-o’-lantern at the back of the highest shelf in the pantry. It would be tough to get to, and the candy would be disgusting by now.

I don’t have to eat it, I reminded myself. Just pretend like I’m going to. I balanced on my hind legs and grabbed the pantry door’s handle with my teeth—it folded open easily with a tug. My nose was overwhelmed with all the smells—Cheese Bobs and Pretzel Bobs, cans of beans and tuna and Noodle Hoops, that half-eaten box of Bug Bites, all kinds of breakfast cereal, and more different flavors of potato chip than I even knew existed. (Flaming hot lobster? Really?) My tongue fell out of my mouth on its own, dripping with hunger. What am I looking for again? Oh, right. Chocolate.

Tonio’s mom was back in her office and Tonio was upstairs with Mia, so they didn’t hear me push a chair from the dining room table to the pantry’s open door. I leaned back onto my hind legs and flopped my chin down on the highest shelf. All the forgotten snacks made their way up here—veggie straws that must have been too healthy for Mrs. Pulaski, a whole box of orange StarChews (the worst kind, obviously), and my prize, abandoned in a plastic pumpkin.

Even on my tippy-paws, I couldn’t quite reach the jack-o’-lantern all the way in the back. I braced both front paws on the shelf and pushed up with my chin, wriggling until I got my back paws on one of the lower shelves, a little higher than the chair. I pushed my neck forward and snagged the pumpkin’s handle in my teeth.

A few quick tugs pulled the pumpkin to the edge of the shelf, but I wasn’t going to be able to hold on to it and climb down. I chewed gently on the plastic handle, thinking, when I heard footsteps running down the stairs—Tonio! I had to put the chair back!

“Buster? Are you down there?”

One more jerk of my neck and the pumpkin went tumbling to the ground, sending StarChews, Crunchsquish pops, Sour Power Blasts, and fun-sized Beantangle chocolate twists sliding across the floor. I threw myself down after them and put both front paws on the chair, pushing hard with my back legs to get it to the table.

Tonio’s footsteps turned the corner right when I made it—but I’d turned the chair around on the way there, and now the back was up against the table. It’ll have to do. I flipped around and looked for a Beantangle chocolate twist—there!—scooped it into my mouth and held it gently between my teeth so the logo was clearly visible.

Tonio looked around at the mess of candy all over the floor, the backward chair, and me. I posed with my chin up, ears folded, tail between my legs to look perfectly embarrassed. You caught me! I tried to say with my eyes. Now save me from my very dangerous decision to eat poison!

But nothing happened. Tonio just put his hands on his hips and tilted his head. “Are you going to eat that, or what?”

This was not what I’d expected.

“Go ahead. Eat it!”

I don’t know what Tonio was thinking, but he had me trapped. If I really tried to eat it, he’d probably stop me, so I needed to commit and bite down on the wrapper. But what if he