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For my father, Bob.
Nothing fake about him.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
About the Author
Other Books by PV
- 1 -
Tony Pandy had 1,086 haters on this one webpage alone.
(Call the Guinness people), he thought. That’s GOT to be a record for a thirteen-year-old.
He had to dig deep, too. Anonymous commenters on the Internet don’t upset themselves, you know. He had to resort to making anagrams of their screen names—like ‘Mark Fender’ becoming Fake Mr. Nerd, or ‘Really Clever Name’ becoming Clearly Never Male.
And those were just the ones that were allowed through.
Sometimes Tony had to pretend to be several other people to get around forum restrictions. It was work. But, come on, ‘YouAreWrong42’ needed to be slammed as Our Yawn Ogre, and ‘Bleed’nHeart’ had to be outed as a Bra Held Teen.
But what was really crazy-making was his signature move: a sudden change of opinion. He would start agreeing with his enemies and disagreeing with his allies, and then sit back and watch the angry posts multiply.
On the Internet, nobody was supposed to change their mind.
But before he posted his accomplishment on TrolledIt!—with screen shots (pictures or it didn’t happen)—he logged on to his super-secret email account.
There was a message from Juniper with a cupcake background:
Want to hang out on DC, 7pm?
LYL,
Juni
LYL = Lick You Later.
That popped the cannula right out his nose. He pinched the air tube back into each nostril.
(As if she ever would.)
DC stood for Dino Cogs, a holographic pop music group from Korea. If you imagined a boy band composed of manga characters you wouldn’t be too far wrong. On their website was a chat room where Tony had first ‘met’ Juniper.
Some DC fans had been picking on her for saying—of all things—that the animation of the bass player was far cuter than the other three members of the band. The disagreement got ugly when one of them suggested she should SUICIDE HERSELF by leaving her fan on all night with the door closed.
This guy really believed ‘fan death’ was possible.
Tony had typed into the chat box,
SWINGING IN ON A GRAPPLING HOOK MADE OF REASON.
He asked the offending fanboy, is that why so many drivers die on the highways each year? They turn on the air conditioner and suffocate? And what about air travel? Do planes leave their windows open all flight?
Fans in enclosed spaces don’t kill people! IDIOT!
Tony then declared that the bass player of the Dino Cogs was so too the cutest animation.
Because he has a mohawk. And mohawks are cuteness squared.
For that, Juni gave him a full page of:
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
But then she began type out questions. Like, how did he hear about the band? What’s his favorite song? Did he ever see them in concert?
Which was embarrassing for Tony. He hadn’t known what the Dino Cogs were before that day. He had only been on their site to find people to turn into poopsocks.
Did he admit that?
(Nah.)
He was a Pandy: Omitting the truth was the family way.
Tony flipped a switch and the amber battery light came on. With his good hand he grabbed the knobby joystick that controlled the motor and backed his wheelchair away from his computer desk.
And not just any ordinary wheelchair. No. There were cup holders, sheepskin upholstery, and a bin in the back like a trunk.
Tony fished a laser pointer out of the glove box hanging from the armrest and pointed at the mini fridge on the floor.
Bonaparte, six pounds of trained Capuchin monkey, chattered back a question from within his massive cage.