Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids

Chapter One

1. DAWN OF THE DORK

"Yo no soy marinero! Yo no soy marinero! Soy capitan! Soy capitan! Soy capitan! Bamba bamba! Bamba bamba! Bamba bamba!"

Fourteen-year-old Jon Finkel rocked inside his Lilliputian chair in the back of the classroom, singing at the top of his lungs. As his gelatinous body swayed, his bottom roll of stomach fat bulged under the desk's Juicy Fruit stalactites. A black stained Phillies T-shirt flapped over his loose jeans. His long tangled hair curled like a roller coaster into what he affectionately termed his "Jewfro." An enormous pair of square glasses slipped down a long, large nose that bent in the middle like it was perpetually ducking a punch. His eyes were two frantic bugs sealed in novelty ice cubes.

As he hit the last note of the song, he pushed his glasses back into place and raised his flabby arms in the air with a triumphant "Hey!" But no applause came. This wasn't music class. It was geography. And by the looks of the bored, pencil-chewing students around him, this strange and unprovoked burst of song was nothing unusual. Finkel, the biggest loser in school, was ... read full excerpt from: Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids ebook