Contents ( 42)
- The Art of Breathing
- Part One: How We Became Who We Are
- Prologue: Or, Where the Kid Hears the Word of the Day
- 1. Where Tyson Learns to Breathe
- 2. Where Tyson Makes a Phone Call
- 3. Where Tyson Graduates and Bear Freaks Out
- 4. Where Tyson Says Good-Bye
- 5. Where Tyson Gets the Mail
- Part Two: Coming Home
- 6. Where Tyson Comes Home
- 7. Where Tyson Gives a History Lesson
- 8. Where Tyson Attends the Most Awkward Party Ever
- 9. Where Tyson Plans Attends a Protest
- 10. Where Tyson Gets Arrested
- 11. Where Tyson Gets His Ass Handed to Him
- 12. Where Tyson Writes Bad Poetry and Gawks at Frat Boys
- 13. Where Tyson Decides to Man the Fuck Up
- 14. Where Tyson Asks Some Questions
- 15. Where Tyson Remembers Theresa Jean Paquinn
- 16. Where Tyson Learns the Benefit of Therapy
- 17. Where Tyson Meets the Man Who Becomes Helena Handbasket
- 18. Where Tyson Gets Screwed at His Own Birthday Party (And Not in a Good Way)
- Part Three: Just Breathe
- 19. Where Tyson Goes to Helena Handbasket’s Sex Dungeon
- 20. Where Tyson Beholds the Awesome Wonder That Is Paul Auster
- 21. Where Tyson Receives Advice from the Six Sages
- 22. Where Tyson Makes a Phone Call
- 23. Where Tyson Hears the Inevitable
- 24. Where Tyson Meets His Match
- 25. Where Tyson Says Hello, Where Tyson Says Good-bye
- 26. Where Tyson Touches upon the Inevitable
- 27. Where Tyson Faces the Music
- 28. Where Tyson Breathes
- 29. Tyson And Dominic
- 30. The Art Of Breathing
- Epilogue: Or, Bear’s Perspective, As It Were (Yeah, He’s Gonna Freak)
- Author’s Note
- Excerpt
- Prologue: Or, Where Bear Answers the Door
- More from TJ Klune
- Readers love the Bear, Otter, and the Kid Chronicles by TJ Klune
- By TJ Klune
The other kid doesn’t say anything.
Right. Awk. Ward.
He allows me the honor of death by mortification for a few moments more, but then I feel a gigantic hand pull my own away from my eyes, and another hand grips my chin. Something presses gently against my eyelid. It feels like a shirt. It rubs softly, getting all my grossness out. He brings it lower and brushes the tears from my cheek, wipes the snot from my nose. I crack open my right eye. My chin is still in his hand. There’s a look of concentration on his face as he finishes using the tail of his shirt and drops it back down. He inspects me for a moment more to make sure it’s good, and then he lets me go and takes a step back. But his blue eyes never leave mine, even as he towers over me, twice my size.
Focus, McKenna. Remember, he could be a spy.
“Why were you watching me?” I ask him, unsure of what else to say.
He doesn’t do anything for a moment. Then he shrugs.
Annoying. “You know,” I tell him, “when someone asks you a question, it’s rude not to answer.”
He shuffles his feet and looks down.
Dammit. Now I feel bad. “Okay, I didn’t mean you’re rude. I’m just saying, societal norms dictate that when a question is asked, a response should be given.” I try not to think of him as a gorilla again, because he already has a lot of my boogers on his shirt. A man can only take so many boogers before he walks away. Wait. Why do I care if he walks away? He’s probably a traitor. One of those lackey Redshirts you always seen in stupid movies where the main bad guy needs hired muscle. Bear doesn’t let me watch too many movies like that because he says my maturing brain doesn’t need outside influences of gratuitous violence. I told him my brain was already more mature than his. He told me I was grounded. I told him he was grounded. Then he gave me soy ice cream and we watched a show on the History Channel about World War II. That was a good day.
The big kid hasn’t said anything yet. “I do like hearing myself talk,” I say, “only because I have a lot of neat things to say, but eventually the conversation will run out in, like, four or five years, and then where will we be?”