The Blacktop Brothers

By William McGinn

I know there are people in this world who get bullied as much as my main character, and whenever they ask their parents, relatives, or school helpers, they always come up with solutions that dont work. Im sure everyone has been in a situation like this. I also hate it when I see a wall spray painted with threats and nicknames that people had no right to spray paint, and out of anger because of a splash pad I live by getting vandalized, I wrote this book to feel better about the whole thing. If you are one of those people tired of hearing solutions that dont work, Im sure this book will calm you down as well. Enjoy The Blacktop Brothers, an action and slapstick extravaganza and book 1 in the Vandal Cycle, an upcoming series of four with something for everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Oct 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466965294

William McGinn

William McGinn wrote The Blacktop Brothers intending it to be just fifty pages and wrote it to feel better about a park getting vandalized. Then he began to grow as much as his characters and was eager for more. He lives in the City of Kawartha Lakes. You can usually catch William writing, practicing animation, digging for old Monster by Mistake episodes, or blogging on his book and movie review website. He's currently juggling book projects like Afterlife, Camp Heist of July 21st, and The Blacktop Brothers 4. You can visit William at www.weldonwitness.weebly.com.

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© Copyright 2012 William McGinn.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-6530-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-6529-4 (e)

Trafford rev. 10/19/2012

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www.trafford.com

North America & international

toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)

phone: [phone] ♦ fax: [phone]

Contents

Chapter One: Dream is Death

Chapter Two: Their Diaries

Chapter Three: The Clue

Chapter Four: The Second Clue

Chapter Five: The Mysterious Doorway

Chapter Six: Rough from Now On

Chapter Seven: Now a Fugitive

Chapter Eight: The Where

Chapter Nine: Anger Antics

Chapter Ten: Finally, they know

Chapter Eleven: When the Emotion and Heart Control

Chapter Twelve: Final Sprint!

Epilogue

I’d like to dedicate this book to my 7th and 8th Grade History Teacher, Mme Bratina, who printed this book out for me, making the edits quicker and easier.

Chapter One

Dream is Death

WAKING UP FROM A sound outside sounded like a familiar sound to the one who heard it. A sound that made Paige Katika angry 16 hours a day. She woke up to see that: A group of boys were spray painting her car! Paige was 15 years old and her 16th birthday was in 3 days. She had been saving it for a special driving course afterward, which she would drive in driving lessons to celebrate her birthday, and now it was ruined. Who was it that caused this disaster? It was the Blacktop Brothers.

Paige screamed. You rats. You jerks! You dweebs!

She ran downstairs in tears and anger, and she got outside, barefoot, only to see the brothers running away at the end of the street. She began to sob, even though this wasn’t the first time those guys made her cry. Being Paige and saying the blacktop brothers bully you is an understatement, big time. They had quite the history. The brothers were nothing but troublemakers with dark black hearts: 100% black. At least that’s how much they showed their friendship to others. Once they broke the Katika’s window to scare them and steal their TV. Paige didn’t have proof of it, but they were the primary suspects in her book. School was another problem, and another big problem. It was common for the blacktop brothers to come to Paige’s house in the middle of the night, and it was never to say a friendly hi. Paige stayed up almost every night on watch for them. She didn’t remember the last time she stayed in bed for three hours straight in peace. Therefore, at school, Paige would almost always either be cranky 24/7, or fell asleep first period, and didn’t wake up until after last period with spitballs in her hair, and they are the main reason Paige doesn’t have any friends, and is lucky to get over 20% in any of her classes. Not only that, many people around Paige always take the quartet’s side, as if they were their lawyer’s due to this behavior not even on purpose. This included the principal of the school, her teachers, even her parents. The only person around Paige who took her side pretty much was her grandma. It was like her grandma was the key to light, and the gangsters were the darkness. The last name of the gang was Philp, and there were 5 in total. Their names were Mark, Yle, Quentin, and their leader aka the oldest of the group was named Madik. There was one other brother that no longer did robbery, vandalism, or assassination: his name was David. He used to be just like them, but for some reason, that made Paige curious for a while was that he wasn’t with them during their jobs. But right now, to poor Paige, with her heart crushed with a want for revenge and her lungs bringing in air like crazy, this was the worst and most foul thing they did yet. To prove it, her grandma had given her a bright-red Lamborgini. but now it was wrecked deliberately, in mint condition just seconds ago. And that was the only thing. She looked over it to see how much damage they had done. They had spray painted their initials on it: 2 on both sides in yellow. And the front was bent, dented, and scratched!

As Paige fell asleep right there on the driveway, the tears still running down her cheeks, this was her goal bigger than moving to her grandma’s condo and living a better life with her; To put them in jail and drive them out of town even if it costs her her life, as she doze on the driveway into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Two

Their Diaries

ONCE PAIGE WOKE UP, dirty, cuts where cuts can hurt the most, and her cheek still wet from the tears, she went inside without a moment’s delay, restarting her anger and tears, and put her car into the garage so people wouldn’t stop and stare dejectedly at her vandalized gift. Then she burst inside only focusing on telling her Mom and Dad the story of the spray painted car. But just as always, even if Paige had all the proof in the universe, and no matter how guilty the brothers could seem, Mom and Dad would always think of a way Paige’s story is impossible. After rejecting her once again, she ran up the stairs, two at a time, thinking of a way to insult her parents back due to anger afterwords, and slammed the door shut, pushed and brought stuff against the door; even her bed up in an attempt to shut out the world. Paige had endured enough trouble. She had a diary with stories of fights against her and the gang with the gang usually winning in the end with little else. Even though it was actually painful to write that stuff in her diary, she opened it up and began a new page starting with,

"The Blacktop Brothers are the biggest idiots that never think of others, let alone me, Paige Katika."

This was how Paige started each and every paragraph in her diary, but she didn’t even realize it, because every time the brothers hurt someone or something, it erases Paige’s memory of the previous. Then she continued her paragraph:

Just like always, I know I have written this down before in past paragraphs, but this time I mean it: I will do everything I can try to get the Black Top Brothers: Yle, Mark, Quentin, (perhaps David,) and Madik most of all gone, even if I have to murder them all, period. Looking back at my previous entries, I realize I sound like a broken record. I continue to complain about those guys but I never do anything to change the situations. This has to end. I’d sacrifice everything I have. I will do everything in my power to stop them. The Blacktop Brothers must be defeated.

Behind all diary entries like this one was,

All 5 of a group of brothers moved to our school on my first day of 9th grade. Who were in a variety of grades above me, but we all took gym. When we met, deep inside, I’m just guessing, we sorta felt like we would get along. At lunch break, we went outside to play in the field for a dodgeball game. I was against them. They are really strong; stronger than they look, and they beat us badly. They acted nice when we first met, but they were such sore winners, they hollered out, Yipee. I win, and you Lose! You are P-Owned. It upset me so much. I regret what happened, but I didn’t have an option, or so I thought. I should havewalked away, but how could I? Instead, with anger, I tackled and punched them vigorously, and once a can of spray paint got knocked out of Madik’s belt, I sprayed his face red. And then my gym teacher grabbed me with my arm, so of course I was the one to get in trouble. Maybe that is when my relationship with my parents started to tilt. It has tilted before from something else, but I don’t want to write. The phone call from the principal was enough to get me grounded for a thousand hours and suspended from school for three days. So I make a statement right now: The only person that will ever stand by me again is my grandma. That was the last of the first diary entry. Paige has lived for ten months of school never getting over the fact that she should have taken the defeat.

She was too exhausted and hurt from sleeping on the driveway, and she practically blacked out into sleep. Meanwhile, someone else was writing in his diary, too. It was David. David Philp. And at the start of it was a page that would be death inspiration if his siblings read it. It was to David a memory of a dream. One he was glad he had, which changed him almost by one half. Perhaps two thirds even. The page said,

"Dreams can sometimes tell amazing things, and also sometimes scary ones nickname the dreams a nightmare. My dream was both. It made me feel ashamed of myself for how much people near us have suffered. I feel completely sorry for poor Paige Katika. Reason why? It’s because I dreamt that someone was speaking to me, and I spent one whole day as Paige herself. I saw myself during that dream. I watched as my brothers and I broke into her house. She was in such pain and distress and I felt all of it. I started to cry. Back at that dodgeball game once we moved