Hellhole by Gina Damico Page A

surprised by how easily the lie came out. As if that small, bad part of him that had stolen the Twinkies and the cat had now been given free rein to shoot up to the surface and slither out of his mouth whenever it wanted.
    He stared at the transplant pager on her nightstand, that useless chunk of plastic that so steadfastly refused to help them. “Anyway—”
    A loud roar sounded from downstairs. Max caught the words “son of a bitch,” followed by something worse, followed by something
much
worse.
    His mother struggled to sit up. “What was that? And what are you doing?”
    Max was surprised to find that his mouth was open, and a strange, sustained “lalalalala” was coming out of it.
    â€œSinging,” he explained.
    She frowned. “What’s going on down there?”
    â€œUm”—he looked up at the ceiling—“it’s this new game Audie brought over. It’s called . . .
Swearstorm
.”
    There’s no way in hell she’s going to buy that,
he thought, but she’d finally taken a bite out of the quiche and was set adrift in cheesy, hammy, eggy heaven. “Mmmm. Audie’s here? Tell her I said hi.”
    â€œOh, she already left. Had homework to finish.” He began to make his way toward the door. “And I do too. So I’m just gonna go”—he stuck his head out the door, yelled “TURN OFF THE
SWEARSTORM,
” looked back at his mother, and smiled sweetly—“and study.”
    She looked back at him with a confused expression, fork posed over the last bites of her meal. “Maybe go a little easy on the quiche next time, Maxter. Too much egg can addle the brain.”
    He kissed her good night and flew back down to the basement, only to discover to his horror that the door to the storage area was open and Burg was inside, standing at Max’s workshop—a.k.a. the old Ping-Pong table Max had commandeered to work on his secret dinosaur projects.
    Not so secret anymore,
he thought upon seeing Burg, who was holding Secret Project #17 in his hand.
    â€œWhat are you doing in here?” Max asked.
    â€œThose rotten video games of yours keep telling me I lost, so I was looking for something to smash the TV with.” He held up the item. “This’ll do.”
    â€œNo! Put that down,” Max said. “Gingerly.”
    Burg dropped it to the table with a crash. “What is it anyway?”
    Max picked up the pieces of the project he’d been painstakingly sculpting out of wire mesh, papier-mâché, and plaster. “It’s supposed to be a T. rex skull.”
    â€œLooks pretty real.”
    â€œA true scientist always strives for accuracy,” Max said.
    â€œA
truuue
scientist always strives for
aaaccuracy,
” Burg said, mimicking him in a high-pitched little-girl voice. “You’re such a nerd.” He walked farther down the Ping-Pong table and grabbed a rough curved object that somewhat resembled a talon. “What about this one?”
    Secret Project #11. “That’s a replica of a fossil found up on Ugly Hill about ten years ago,” Max said, taking it from him and turning it over in his hands. “Last year I emailed the professor who found it, and he sent me a couple of high-definition photos, and I’ve been working off of those. No one knows what it is—Dr. Cavendish was beginning to theorize that it came from some bird-dinosaur missing link. But he died a few months ago, and everyone was starting to think he was a crackpot anyway. Now nobody cares but me.”
    Burg squinted at the talon. “That’s not from a bird.”
    â€œA
prehistoric
bird. They were different. Bigger.”
    Burg shrugged. “Is that why you were digging up on the hill?”
    â€œYeah. I’ve always thought I could find more by myself, but . . .”
    It sounded so idiotic when he said it out loud. Why was he saying it out loud anyway?