Today's tour stop is an excerpt or rather, two teasers taken from Isabel Kunkle's book, Hickey of the Beast. If you are like me, you will enjoy the humour infused throughout the book. You can follow along with the Teen Book Scene blog tour for Hickey of the Beast here.
Enjoy!
No big surprise that I didn't think about the dream, huh? Everything was going really well, so it wasn't like I had anything to worry about. The only thing that creeped me out was when Mom came into my room on Saturday and told me she wanted to keep Rainbow, our cat, indoors for a couple weeks longer than usual. We don't let her out when the students are arriving—too many new people in cars—but we'd always been good after the first weekend, so I asked what was up.
Mom got this sort of having-to-touch-something-gross look on her face. "One of the maintenance staff found a rabbit the other day." She glanced back at Julio, who'd followed her up to my room. "A D-E-A-D one, I mean. They're a little worried that there's a fox or a coyote around—maybe even someone's abandoned dog—and that it's...sick."
I'm not scared of dogs generally, but the thought of having a pit bull or a Great Dane or something running around without an owner was a little freaky. Plus, I knew Mom meant rabies. I really, really didn't want to get bitten by anything with rabies. I hear you have to get about seventeen shots, and they're all in your stomach. "Where'd they find the...rabbit?" I asked.
"Near the old chapel. I'll send an email out to the student body tonight." She patted me on the shoulder. "Don't worry, sweetie. If there's something out there, maintenance will find it in a day or two." Which they didn't, but whatever: rabies is fatal, right? Besides, nobody got bitten, and the whole thing was Mom's job, and maintenance's, not mine. My biggest worries right then were making the JV soccer team, getting a birthday present for Autumn, and the fact that first period bio was going to make us dissect worms at nine in the morning.
That was pretty much how it went for the next week or two. And then Abby Martell went crazy. pg. 14-15
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We were still in Ancient Greece, though it was less mythology stuff now and more actual wars and things. Sparta and the Persians. They always tried to do some kind of Big Theme with freshman history, and this year it was Myths And Foundations. Really, I thought it was more Education That Makes Springden Look Like a Goddamn Day Spa, given the amount of time we spent learning about the Spartan kids having to steal food and survive in the wild with just knives. I'd bet Jenny ten dollars that the "King Arthur and Knighthood" bit in November was going to have a lot about how much it sucked to be a squire.
So I listened and took notes, like usual, and watched Jenny and Mark get into a semi-argument about women in Sparta and whether the warriors had actually, you know, gotten it on with each other, and whether they'd all thought that women were inferior, or what. Jenny was just starting to get that oh-my-God-I-hate-your-breathing-guts look when Ms. Saldiagga stepped in.
"Our sources from that time aren't as accurate as anyone would like," she said, sort of smiling, "so there's a lot of room for debate. Some theories say that Spartan women actually had a surprising amount of freedom compared to, say, the women in Athens—but we're almost out of time for today, and I wanted to discuss your second paper." pg. 32-33
© Isabel Kunkle. All rights reserved.
© Isabel Kunkle. All rights reserved.
Hickey of the Beast is a hilarious look at coming of age in a school where there are no secrets, but plenty of mysteries, and where supernatural studies take on a whole new meaning. It's a story about all the things that make growing up hell: boys, history class, annoying little brothers, and saving the world from evil. When the supernatural comes to school, it's no field day - and that's before you factor in homework.
Synopsis taken from Amazon.com.
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