Lump

By Robert Jeschonek

Meet a kid so bad, he gets a lump of coal every Christmas...and likes it! Neighborhood bully Buzz Scanlan takes pride in his annual lump, which he sees as a black badge of badness. But this Christmas, when the coal doesn't come, the ten-year-old holy terror becomes a bad boy on a mission. He roams from one victim of his wicked mischief to the next, digging for dirt on the one nice thing he must have done to deserve no coal for Christmas. When everyone agrees he's been nothing but naughty, he nearly gives up the hunt...until he stumbles onto the shocking truth behind his lumps of coal, an incredible secret that just might change his life forever. Will Buzz get his lump after all, sealing his fate as the ultimate bully? Or will solving the mystery lead to a fate worse than death for the naughtiest boy, an unexpected good deed that breaks his not-nice record? After this Christmas, nothing will be the same for the kid who loves lumps of coal. Don't miss this fun and funny Christmas tale with a twist from award-winning author Robert Jeschonek, author of My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, chosen by Booklist as one of the Top Ten First Novels for Youth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Jeschonek
• Release date: Dec 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781458025418

Book preview

Lump

LUMP

A KIDS’ TALE

ROBERT JESCHONEK

Pie Press Publishing

CONTENTS

Also by Robert Jeschonek

Lump

About the Author

Special Preview: Tommy Puke and the World’s Grossest Grown-up

LUMP

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Jeschonek

www.robertjeschonek.com

Cover Art Copyright © 2023 by Ben Baldwin

www.benbaldwin.co.uk

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved by the author.

A Pie Press book

Published by Pie Press Publishing

411 Chancellor Street

Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904

www.piepresspublishing.com

ALSO BY ROBERT JESCHONEK

My Favorite Band Does Not Exist

Tommy Puke and the Boy With the Golden Barf

Tommy Puke and the World's Grossest Grown-Up

LUMP

Buzz Scanlan, the ten-year-old terror of Titusville, Florida, slammed down the lid of the white metal mailbox on the front of his house. Then he kicked the white siding below it so hard that he left a dent in the vinyl.

And he kicked it twice more after that. Each time, the dent got deeper and his angry cries got louder.

Not there! He scrubbed his fingers in his jet black rat's nest of hair, then smacked the mailbox with the flat of his hand. It's not there!

He might have been the nastiest kid in the neighborhood, but he was right. Buzz had dug his dirty paw through every square inch of that mailbox and found nothing. The thing he should have found, the thing he'd been expecting, wasn't there.

It was a good thing Buzz didn't have a grenade launcher just then. He was mad enough to use it.

Because for the first time in five years, he hadn't gotten his special present on Christmas Eve.

"Where is it?" Buzz clenched his teeth and kicked the siding one more time for bad measure. He thought about pulling the mailbox off the house and stomping it flat.

But his mom flung open the front door before he could do it. Buzz! What's going on out here?

Buzz spun to face her. "Did you take it? Did you?"

Mom, who was a good two feet taller than Buzz, frowned down at him. "Take