by john | Feb 9, 2011 | Real Life, Writing
Hell if I know! This is one of those weeks where it gets to be hard to remember what town (or state) I’m in on any given evening, and you really get confused because the hotel room last night had the bathroom in the other direction and now you just peed on the air conditioner at 3:30 in the morning, and trust me that is NOT something you want to explain to the front desk at checkout.
Theoretically speaking, of course.
Sunday I flew to Wisconsin for some work training, and got home Tuesday night a little after midnight. It’s now Wednesday and I’m in Atlanta, because I thought driving for 4 1/2 hours today was about all I was good for, rather than the 6+ it would have taken me to get all the way to Columbus, GA, which is where I’ll be heading tomorrow for the rest of the week. Then I get home Saturday night (or Sunday late morning) and we go to take my parents out for their collective birthdays (Mom today, Dad Saturday). I also have some additional work travel next week, but that’s all day trip stuff, nothing overnight.
And then there’s a Charlotte Writers’ Club meeting next week, with novelist Heather Newton, and then off to RoundCon next weekend! Hopefully the folks there will be able to look up from their d20s long enough to buy a few books. If you’re in Columbia, stop by and say hello!
Just got the site update to the Charlotte ComiCon site, which now lists me as an official guest, and I’m very excited about that. I used to buy comics from Dave when I was in college, so now that I can be a guest at his show, that’s pretty cool. He runs a very nice little show with some amazing deals on comics, so check out their site and stop by on March 20th if you’re around Charlotte.
Alright, I’m off. Just a quick post tonight before I get to proofing Back in Black (and Blue). Gotta get that rolling for the March release date!
by john | Feb 6, 2011 | Book Spotlight
My posting this week will be a bit limited as I bounce from the Great White North back down to Georgia for work travel all week, but I didn’t want to leave you without a Sunday Spotlight. And this one’s super-fresh because I just finished this book on the plane. Jenny Pox by JL Bryan – wow, what a roller coaster ride.
The blurb from Smashwords goes like this – Jenny has a secret. Her touch spreads a deadly supernatural plague. She devotes her life to avoiding contact with people, but her senior year of high school, she falls in love with the one boy she can touch. But he’s under the spell of his devious girlfriend Ashleigh, who secretly wields the most dangerous power of all. Now Jenny must master the “Jenny pox” before Ashleigh can destroy her.
I picked up the book because it had gotten some great responses on a couple of message boards I frequent, but put off getting started because it sounded a little too chick-flick, Lifetime movie for me. I couldn’t have been more wrong. JL Bryan has written a book that runs the gamut from young adult romance to revenge thriller to horror novel to grand fantasy epic love story, and doesn’t miss on any fronts. I was, quite simply, blown away.
I grew up in rural SC, so I’m a little touchy about people writing about rednecks from my home state. Bryan captures the class separation in the rural South beautifully, and paints a totally realistic picture of what life is like when the haves target the have-nots for torment. Throw in the fact that Jenny, the main character, really is a freak of nature with poisonous hands, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster like I haven’t read in years.
Seriously, kids, this book kicks ass. It’s old-school Stephen King good, before he got hit by a car and started thinking too many deep thoughts. This is Pet Sematary and Needful Things kinda good. Jenny Morton is the hero, the kid you love despite all the crap she does that’s not lovable. That’s where Bryan excels – he paints realistic heroes. Jenny steals her dad’s weed when life gets to be too much, and has nasty thoughts of revenge when people do mean things to her. She’s not some wimpy little chickadee that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, and that’s what makes the book all the better. The cast of supporting characters is solid, too, but it’s the villain of the piece that gets some of the best attention. She’s as fully realized as Jenny, a nasty little bitch that you hope against hope for most of the book that she gets what’s coming to her.
I’m not going to give away any plotlines, because that’s just shitty, but the climactic confrontation is every bit as scorched-earth badass as anything I’ve read in a long, long time. This is a book that you should all go buy, because it’s a hell of a thrill ride!
by john | Feb 5, 2011 | Writing
Before I get to dead birds, I just found out that my book, The Chosen, is featured on Spalding’s Racket today! If you don’t know Nick, you should check out his blog. He highlights indie authors, is an indie author, and has a fantastic snarky sense of humor! Check out his book, Life…with no Breaks, when you need a good laugh!
Now, about my albatross. The one that’s been hanging around my neck all week, I mean. I’ve finished my short story for the Twelve Worlds anthology that the inimitable Derek J. Canyon is putting together. The anthology will be out sometime in late spring and will feature a dozen short stories from self-published authors, as well as a few extra stories from previously unpublished writers. It’s also for a good cause, as all proceeds from the sale of the book will go to charity. I’ll post up more info as it develops, but I think it will be a cool thing. I wrote a Black Knight Chronicles story, a short adventure set before the events in Hard Day’s Knight, so I hope that people who enjoyed that book will pick up the anthology and get some stand-alone back story for our boys. There’s certainly nothing in there that is required reading for anyone’s understanding of the universe, it’ll just add a little color for the folks that read it.
I’ve been reading Side Jobs, which is a collection of stories from the world of The Dresden Files, and it’s really good. Of course, by reading in this case I mean listening to while I drive, but that’s how I’ve “read” the last four or five Dresden books, so that’s just my M.O. for those novels. I signed up with Audible forever ago, and for $15/month I get one free audiobook. And as much as I drive, I love it. All of these stories are similar to what I tried to do for the anthology, a separate story that doesn’t impact the continuity of the universe, but allows for a little depth into something that I haven’t yet explored in the main storyline. Of course, since I’ve written two books as opposed to Butcher’s dozen or so Dresden novels, it was a little easier for me. But I turned it in at around 5,000 words, which is a nice length for a short story.
Now on to the next thing – I think I’m going to work on Return to Eden Volume 1. I posted the first chapter here a week or so ago, and I think I want to spend some time with those kids and see what I can make of their story. I need to pump a little more immediacy into it, or at least get ready for a big conflict soon. I’ll keep you posted. I have no idea how long this one is going to be, but if it runs like most of my stuff, in that 60K range, I’ll be ready with a first draft of it some time in late March or early April. Depends on how the prep work for Back in Black (and Blue) goes.
I fly to Wisconsin tomorrow for work, because the baby Jesus hates me and wants me to be cold. I just hope all my flights are ok from the weather they got earlier this week, and I can get there on time. Wish me luck!
by john | Feb 4, 2011 | Writing
It’s 10:30 on a Friday night and I’m just beginning to catch my breath. This was a long week, and it looks to be followed by another one of the same. I’ve been to Atlanta, Durham, Raleigh and Winston-Salem this week, and next week sees me in Madison, WI, Atlanta and Columbus, GA and then eventually back to Charlotte. Then I think I’m home for most of a week before RoundCon in Columbia, SC, which will be a nice little semi-vacation. More to the point, I’ll be working, but I’ll be working for me and not for The Man.
Although, I guess since I’m middle management, I’m the epitome of The Man most days. Oh well, it is what it is. I’m getting through the first round of edits on Back in Black (and Blue) and March is still looking good for a release date. Gotta get to work on a cover, though. Might try something radically different with this cover. I love the covers Lindsay has made for me, but they might not be the best covers as far as marketability, and the whole point is to sell books, after all. So I’m gonna look at some things. I can always change the cover later.
The Win a Kindle/Nook/Gift Card contest is getting a lot of entrants, but not a lot of people are emailing me book receipts or trivia question answers, so I’m not sure how effective it is as a sales tool. But it’s getting my name out there, and anything that increases my name recognition doesn’t hurt at this point. Joe Konrath had a really interesting post on his blog a while back about book tours and signings and things like that. Basically he said that now that he’s self-pubbing, his writing is making him enough money to stay home and write. And since he’s doing most of his business through e-books, it’s better for him financially to not do as many cons and appearances, and stay home and get the next book out. This makes sense, especially if you’re as prolific as Joe (and I hope to one day be), but I’m likely to continue doing as many cons and book fairs as I can for a while, simply because I really enjoy them. I like meeting people and talking to them about my book. I’m sure eventually the gild will come off that lily and I’ll want to stay home and write, but for now I’ll be behind a table every chance I get signing books.
Speaking of books, we’re at 8 books sold 4 days into the month, so why don’t you go to Amazon and put me into double digits already?
by john | Feb 1, 2011 | Writing
I missed a deadline this morning. Well, I probably haven’t really missed it until tonight, and there is a slightly less than zero percent chance that I can create a short story out of whole cloth between now and the time I go to sleep. Except for the fact that I’m at work, which interferes with my writing. It’s considered somewhat untoward for the manager to be working on his fiction writing while at work. We’re not going to talk about my blogging while working, because it doesn’t take as long. And because we’re not going to talk about it.
Just got some interesting news, though. The 2012 Democratic National Convention will be coming to Charlotte, which is good news for the day job. You see, I sell theatrical lighting equipment. And news crews use a lot of lighting. And so do event companies. And two things that flood into a town during a big political convention are event companies and news crews, so that looks like next summer will provide a nice little bump in sales for us.Nothing huge, but a decent bump is better than nothing, which is what we would have gotten if the convention had gone to St. Louis.
On the writing front, I’m getting the first proofreading bits of Back in Black (and Blue) back, so I think we’ll be all systems go to have that ready in March. I just stocked up on Hard Day’s Knight and The Chosen to have copies at RoundCon in a couple of weeks, so if you’re gonna be around Columbia, SC come by and say hello. I’ve also been featured on a couple of cool websites lately, including Fang-Tastic Books and No Trees Harmed. Please go visit these folks and thank them for supporting your favorite independent author!
by john | Jan 31, 2011 | Writing
It’s a good thing Amazon had a bunch of good albums on the $5 rack this month, or I’d be downright homicidal by now. Work sucks right now, but it’s just standard beginning of year evaluation/budget crap that everybody goes through. And I’m down a person because he and the company parted ways last week, so now I begin the hiring process all over again. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been interviewing people constantly for the past two years. But these are the perils of middle management, and since I take the check, I have to take the crap.
On the “take the check” front, January will wrap up as the best sales month to date for my books. As of this morning, I’ve sold the following –
Amazon –
Hard Day’s Knight – 27
Red Dirt Boy – 1
The Chosen – 17
Barnes & Noble (I don’t really believe these figures since they show zero sales since the 15th, but I suppose it’s possible. There have been issues with the BN reporting software).
Hard Day’s Knight – 6
The Chosen – 3
Smashwords- (a couple of these are freebies that I gave to reviewers)
Hard Day’s Knight – 3
The Chosen – 2
I’m not going to get rich on those kind of sales by any stretch, but this shows a 50% increase in sales on Amazon, my primary sales channel, since last month. So let’s extrapolate that a few months and see what it looks like.
January – 45 books – $90
February – 65 books – $130
March – 95 books – $190
April – 190 books – $380
So if I continue on this growth pattern, I might actually be making some significant money by late spring/early summer. Add to that the release of my next book in March, and I’m pretty optimistic about being able to pay for a couple of Vegas trips this year off of selling books, and that would be nice.
A lot of successful indie authors are reporting a point where the switch just flipped and they went from selling a couple dozen books a month to hundreds of books a month seemingly overnight. I’d love to see that happen, but if it doesn’t, it’s no big deal. I’ve written the books, and I’ll keep writing the books. I have faith that if I write to the best of my ability, that the market will find me eventually and my books will sell.
It’s kinda like when I started blogging – create good content and people will eventually find you. So I’m going to write good books, and trust in the marketplace to find me. Of course I’ll still do whatever promotion I can afford, but most of what I’m going to do is write.
Which reminds me, I have to crank out a short story tonight to replace the one I tore into electrons in a fit of frustration last night. I knew where it was going, it was clever, witty and going in exactly the direction I had planned for it. And it was boring as hell. I couldn’t come up with a way to show more than I was telling, so I trashed it. I might go back to it later, but now that I’m on deadline I need to shift gears and knock this bad boy out tonight or tomorrow. I came up with a new plan while I was driving to Atlanta yesterday, so I should be able to jam out 5K words in a night or two.
Alright, enough ramble – go buy a book, my cat needs fed!
by john | Jan 30, 2011 | Book Spotlight
Authors, if you want to be featured on the Sunday Spotlight – write a great book. If I buy it and read it and agree that it’s a great book, it’ll probably end up here. If you wanna send me a copy of your great book, that’s very cool and I appreciate it. But I’m not going to be a review site, and I’m not promising anything except that once a week I’ll try to write up a book from an independent author that I love. But I won’t turn down gifts – email them to johnhartness AT gmail DOT com.
We’re not going to go into the fact that Amanda Hocking came out of nowhere in 2010 to become a monster best-selling author, all without the backing of any big publishing house or press machine. We’re not going to hold her up as some type of gold standard for independent authors and make her our Joan of Arc for self-publishing. Because frankly, none of that matters. All that matters is that this chick from Minnesota has written some kickass books and you should check them out.
Now a bunch of Hocking’s books are in trilogies, but my favorite book of hers so far is a stand-alone zombie novel called Hollowland. The blurb for Hollowland says “This is the way the world ends – not with a bang or a whimper, but with zombies breaking down the back door.” And from page 1, this book had me by the short hairs and never let go. 19-year-old Remy King only cares about one thing in the world – getting her brother the help he needs. And she will do anything it takes to get Max to safety, from battling hordes of zombies to bands of outlaw scavengers to her own hormones and despair.
Hocking paints a great post-apocalyptic world, with plenty of grit but also the odd ray of hope. Remy tries to be tough as nails, but shows all too often that she’s really a good person underneath. Look, I’m no book critic, I’m just a redneck writer with a fantasy literature itch, and Hollowland scratched that as well as anything I’ve read recently. I loved it as much as I loved The Hunger Games, and it really runs right up the with Ender’s Game, one of my all-time faves. That’s not to say that this book is anything like those, although there are certain dystopian traditions that it shares with The Hunger Games, as well as 1984, We and even the final scenes of E.T.
The plot is tight and fast-paced, and the book kept me up way past my bedtime for more than one night. I even snuck in a little time to read at work, which is a true testament to how much I wanted to know what happened next. The characters are nicely well-rounded, from the shell-shocked rock star to the frightened baby brother to the ass-kicking heroine. I would say this is a great book for teen and preteen girls who are interested in fantasy as horror lit, because it gives them a solid role model instead of the insipid heroines we see in so many TV shows and movies. Remy is definitely more Rambo and Veronica Mars than Bella, and the literary world needs more of that.
Hollowland is a thrill ride of a book, and one that leaves you gasping for breath at the end, feeling fulfilled and still wanting more. I felt like the book ended almost perfectly, but I still wanted a sequel just because I enjoyed the characters so much. So you should go buy it.
For more about Amanda Hocking and her work, go to her blog.
To buy Hollowland for multiple e-readers, including the Kindle, go to Smashwords.
by john | Jan 29, 2011 | Poker
Last week I joined my buddy Jim at a local underground poker room for a Pot Limit Omaha tourney. Now I loves me some Omaha, but I’ve played very little tournament Omaha, or Omadraw as we like to call it. This was a cheap-o rebuy tournament, where your initial buy-in was only $25, with $20 rebuys. Yeah, that always works well for me. I should never, ever play in a cheap rebuy tournament. I should stick to tournaments with one buy-in or $100 or better, because then I care a little more. Or can at least fake it.
I bought in, and did the immediate rebuy to give myself a double stack. Then I shoved it in with bottom set against a made straight and a flush draw, got my full house when the flush hit, and was off to the races. That sounds like the recipe for a big stack, right? Yeah, not so much. I played like complete crap in the rebuy period and fished out a total of $145 out of my pocket before all was said and done. After the rebuy period, people were dropping like flies. The play in this even was pretty spectacularly bad, I’m pretty sure a moderately bright orangutan could have made the final table. And since Jim and I both made the final table, you can judge that for yourself!
I tightened up considerably once we got close to the money, but there was one guy who never shifted gears. He might have been the second-worst player in the whole event, so of course he built a massive stack. There aren’t many things that I consider to be unforgivable poker sins, but being a calling station is high on the list. This guy not only flat-called with flush draws, he would call with ANY flush draw, no matter how puny and no matter how big the bet. He took half my stack early when I led out with two pair and he was my only caller with a flush draw. He picked up bottom pair on the turn and called me again. The river paired his ace, and I checked behind him. He turned over his runner-runner two pair and started to pseudo-apologize for his play, saying he was on the flush draw. Of course he was on the 10-high flush draw, so not even close to the nuts, but regardless. I looked at him and said “Don’t apologize, you gave me the action I wanted. You called when you were behind, and checked when you pulled ahead. I couldn’t have asked for you to play it any better for me.”
Of course half an hour later he calls my all-in with the nine-high flush draw and bottom pair against my Kings and gets there on the river to send me packing two out of the money. I’ll definitely be back the next time they run that tourney, because there’s a lot of money to be made. I didn’t make enough adjustments once we got to the final table, but with a little tweaking, I feel fairly certain that I can pull down a pile of money out of that tourney.
Omaha is a great game, if you’re not familiar with it, you should check out Full Tilt Poker where you can play poker online for free.
by john | Jan 28, 2011 | Real Life
Every generation has one or more of those “Where were you when…?” moments. For my parents there were many – the bomb in Japan, V-E day, V-J Day, Kennedy’s assassination. Those are the same ones for most of my peers’ grandparents, but my folks are older than most. It’s one of those things that people go to when they’ve had that one drink too many and gotten maudlin, or when a song comes on the radio that reminds them of the day, or something.
My generation went a long way without having one. I was born in 1973, and the onslaught of the modern televised news broadcast number a lot of that “where were you when” feeling. It wasn’t enough to just have something happen – it had to be BIG. I was too young to really remember the Iran hostage crisis, but I do remember the yellow ribbons. I was only four when Elvis died, and only seven when John Lennon was shot, so those didn’t have much impact. Until a bunch of assholes flew airplanes into buildings ten years ago, I had only ever had one “Where were you?” moment.
I was in seventh grade, and it was January. It was cold, and it was after lunch, so I was in the middle school auditorium playing Dungeons & Dragons with Billy D. and Bradley. There might have been someone else, too, but I’m sure those two were there. I’m fairly certain that at some point one of the popular girls turned around in her seat in the row ahead of us and called us nerds, which stung, but was unavoidably true. So we were rolling up characters, or rolling attacks, or just generally goofing around, when the intercom box on the wall squawked to life.
The Challenger, the space shuttle carrying seven souls, exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Florida, killing all aboard. Among the crew was Christa McAuliffe, a teacher selected as part of a national competition. This was to be the first in a series of educators in space, a program that ended with McAuliffe’s death.
I remember the shock, the dismay that I felt. Our country had failed at something. It was a big deal to me, the first time I had known the USA to not be the biggest and best. My twelve-year-old mind didn’t quite comprehend everything that was happening. I had missed Vietnam, and Watergate, and was just beginning to understand the impact those events had on our national consciousness. This was the first time I had seen our country reach for the stars and miss. Shuttle launches were ordinary by 1986, so commonplace that while the TV in the library was on and tuned to the event, it was no longer mandatory viewing for every schoolkid. But then it went wrong, and my perceptions of the world changed.
I don’t remember much about the Reagan presidency, but that night he was the President we needed. Just like George W. Bush, who I have blasted on these pages on more than one occasion, was exactly the President we needed in the days after 9/11. Reagan’s words from that night’s speech, quoted from John Gillespie Magee Jr.’s poem High Flight, were perfect.
Today, 25 years later, I still remember.
“We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of Earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.'”
by john | Jan 27, 2011 | Writing
This is the first chapter of something new I’m working on. It’s a young adult novel about the end of civilization as we know it. Lemme know what you think.
The day the world ended started off just like every other Thursday. Christin Kinsey got up after the alarm went off for the third time, staggered to the bathroom in her t-shirt and pajama bottoms, went about her morning business, took a shower, brushed her teeth, yelled at her brother Matt to drag his sorry butt out of bed because she wasn’t going to be late on account of him again this week, went back into her room, got dressed in a pair of jean shorts and a Kings of Leon T-shirt she’d borrowed from her boyfriend Kent a week or two ago, and beat on Matt’s door a couple more times before heading downstairs for breakfast.
While Christin was settling in behind a bowl of Lucky Charms and a Coke, her mom was in the kitchen in dress slacks and a bra, ironing a shirt that had obviously spent the night in the dryer and mainlining coffee with CNN on in the background. There was some other big fuss going on somewhere in the world with people that hated Americans shooting Americans, and Americans going in to stop them from shooting too many other people, and some talking heads with French accents whining about the overbearing American policies.
“Mom,” Christin asked between mouthfuls of cereal and marshmallows, “why don’t French people like us?”
“Because all frogs are douchebags” answered Matt, clumping down the stairs in baggy cargo shorts and Doc Marten boots, the uniform of his whole bunch of loser friends.
“Matthew!” Shrieked their mother, putting on her shirt and zipping up her slacks while simultaneously trying to butter a bagel and put away the iron. “We do not use terms like ‘douchebags’ or ‘frogs’ in this house! There are some French people who would rather eat Brie and smoke stinky cigarettes than do what needs to be done in the world, but that’s no reason to condemn the whole country. The French contributed some wonderful things to society,”
“Yeah,” Matt interrupted, “like eating snails and the guillotine.”
“I can think of some times when the guillotine would be useful, muttered Christin.
“Alright you two comedians, get your butts out of here or you’re going to be late. Again.” Their mother hustled them out of the kitchen and thrust some cash into Christin’s hand. “This should get you some gas and cover lunch for both of you. There’s frozen pizza in the fridge for tonight, I’ve got to go to Charlotte for a meeting with the B of A people about the loan.” She had been negotiating with the mortgage demons at Bank of America for months about refinancing their home, and it was, in her words, time for someone to “shit or get off the pot.” Sandra Kinsey didn’t swear often, but more and more often lately when she did, it involved someone with the mortgage company.
Things had been okay when Christin and Matt’s dad had been around, but Jacob Kinsey had died of lung cancer three years ago, and things had gotten tight with all his medical bills. Sandra had mortgaged the house to the hilt to pay off all the doctors and hospitals, but when the housing market in Asheville, NC went into the toilet like it did all over the country, they owed a lot more on the house than it was worth. President Obama’s plans to help American homeowners sounded good on TV, but didn’t always work out so well when reality hit the fan, as Sandra had become increasingly fond of saying. So today she was headed down to Charlotte, and she was determined to come home with some answers, or at least with a pound of flesh from some useless paper-pusher to make her feel better.
Sandra followed her kids out the front door and watched as they piled in Jacob’s old F-100 pickup truck and headed off to school. She’d kept the truck around until Christin had been old enough to drive, then given it to the girl for her sixteenth birthday. Big, blocky and decidedly un-sexy, the truck was nevertheless dependable and certainly better built than anything that had come out of Detroit in the past 30 years. It was a 1965 model, the year Jacob was born, and he had restored it to working order, if not much more than that. So it was a big rolling hunk of steel that Sandra didn’t mind sending her kids off to school in while she headed down the mountains in her Nissan Murano to do battle with the evildoers at the great corporate headquarters.
Christin drove into the parking lot at West Asheville High School, and parked the truck at the far end of the lot, as usual. It didn’t take too many mornings of being mocked by Cindy Monihan and her gaggle of bleached-blonde cheerleaders and wannabes for the Kinseys to decide it was easier to walk a few more steps up to the school each morning than deal with the popular kids. Of course, it didn’t matter where they parked, they still had to run the gauntlet of the beautiful people to get into the school, and that was as fun as your average dentist’s visit.
“Oh look, everyone, the Kinsey twins have decided to grace us with their pollution once again,” announced Cindy, who wielded her new Prius like a weapon against Christin’s gas-guzzling truck.
“Not twins, bimbo, but if you weren’t too vain to wear your glasses you’d see that,” muttered Matt as they walked into the school, heads lowered against the disapproving glances of Cindy’s psuedo-environmentalist friends. They cared about the planet because it was the latest flavor, not because they had any great connection to Mother Earth.
Since Matt had his head down, he never saw the chest he ran into, but it didn’t take anyone nearly as bright as the younger Kinsey to realize that Brian Regan, Cindy’s boyfriend, had heard his mumbled insult.
“What did you say, asswipe?” The much larger boy said to Matt, who had bounced off his chest like a superball.
“I said we’re not twins.”
“What else did you say, butt-munch?” Brian gave Matt a shove, spinning him into another of his friends. By now most of the starting offensive line for the football team had formed a circle around Matt, grinning and handing their letter jackets to their girlfriends just in case there was bleeding.
Matt’s temper flared white-hot, and he lost control of his mouth, as he was wont to do in these, or really any, situations. “I said, if your bimbo girlfriend would put on her glasses once in a while, she could see past the end of her makeup mirror.” Christin groaned quietly, hoping her mother had paid for the health insurance this month, because it looked like Matt was going to be needing another trip to urgent care.
“Hold the little chump,” Brian said to his buddies. They instantly grabbed Matt’s arms, but left his legs alone, which cost Brian dearly when he stepped in to deliver Matt’s punishment. The smaller boy was no football bruiser, but two years of varsity cross country had given him plenty of lower-body muscle, and the kick he landed on Brian’s groin was as good as any field goal the team had made all season. Regan dropped like a sack of well-manicured potatoes, and his buddies relaxed their grip on Matt’s arms just enough for him to wrestle his way free and bolt into the school building, his sister hot on his heels. The first bell was just ringing as they made their way inside, laughing hysterically.
“That was great, little bro. Meet you for lunch?” Christin asked.
“Yeah, if I can avoid the goon squad.” Matt gave his sister a high five and they headed off to their morning classes, for the last time.
