Out of Whack Read Online Free Page A

pulls on his jeans.
           Do you assume a) she found an unexpected dead octopus under the covers, or b) her large, muscular boyfriend got a little carried away with the hanky-panky?
           The rest of the night was rather unpleasant. It included a really cool punch to the jaw by Travis’ dad, lots and lots of shouting that included “Go get my shotgun!” and a visit from the police. It ended with explanations all around, and severe punishments for all the youthful participants. Though Margaret was technically grounded “for the rest of her life,” her parents paroled her after a month. Travis got one week. After my parents were notified, I got two, which still seems kind of unfair.
     
    * * *
     
           Summer drew to a close, as those traitorous summers are wont to do. The specter of a new school year hovered above us, mocking us, laughing at our feeble attempts to squeeze as much fun as we possibly could into the last days of freedom.
           The Saturday before homework season began, I spent the night at Travis’ house again. His mom decided that we needed to practice getting up early, and thus sent us to bed at 9:30 p.m. We gave her recommendation of going to sleep ample consideration, ultimately rejected it, and spent a while just talking. We discussed the fact that we were both going to be in Mrs. Talbot’s class, which was absolutely terrifying. It was said that if you looked deep into her eyes you would know what true evil was, and it would haunt you until your dying day. As it turned out, Mrs. Talbot was a perfectly nice woman, and the students she axe-murdered for her unholy rituals weren’t close acquaintances anyway.
           “Know what I’ve always wanted to do?” Travis asked me.
           “Eat your boogers?” I was ten, remember. My ad-lib skills weren’t quite honed yet.
           “No.”
           “Eat somebody else’s boogers?”
           “No. I want to start a story. Do a page of it every single day for the rest of my life. It’d be the longest story ever written.”
           “I’ll help you with it,” I offered. “We can write it together.”
           “Okay, and when we’re not together, one of us will have to write it alone. We’ll keep it in notebooks, and trade them back and forth. And we have to promise to do one page every day, no matter what. Okay?”
           “Okay. What do you want it to be about?”
           “We should make up a brand new super hero.” Travis went over to his desk and grabbed a notebook. He tore out the first few already-used sheets, then picked up a pencil. “We’ll start with his origin.”
           He started to write. I peered over his shoulder.
           Once upon a time...
           “Hey!” I said, glancing at his clock. “That killer horse movie is on! Wanna start writing this tomorrow?”
            “Sure, all right.”
           We started writing the next day. We decided to exercise some forethought and title our epic tale “Travis and Seth’s Story,” because you never knew what plot twists might come about and invalidate other titles.
           Believe it or not, we stuck with it. No, we didn’t write every day, and we usually didn’t do the full page, but this wasn’t an idea that we tossed aside after a week or so, like learning the guitar or brushing our teeth. Our hero was a lively, moralistic chap named Trychen who wore gold body armor and could fly despite being weighed down by all that gold. He was a very effective hero, going through villains at the rate of approximately one every five days.
           There were some notable differences in writing styles at first. When I had the story to myself, there were no limits, and as much over-the-top silliness as I could squeeze in. The creation of Butt-Man was one of my more legendary moments. Travis’ contributions were more focused and took the material seriously. He