Dudes in the Middle

By Emily Kay Johnson and Tyler Reynolds

Time to multitask!
Middle school is the new high school (huh?) and Dudes are low men on the totem pole. What else can they do but create a fake eighth-grader? Along the way, they:
Create a reality show
Signal UFO’s
Promote devil worship
And exert mind control on the student body.
Oh yeah! But can they learn good study skills?
All new middle school adventures! A funny start to required school reading! The Dudes have middle school mastered and so will their readers.

Madcap adventure featuring five suburban friends and their creative approach to home, school, and dart guns! Middle-grade readers love this series of hilarious hijinks for the modern generation. Featuring: how to outwit the PTA, cell-phone stunts for fun and profit, a DIY eighth-grader, and an attack Chihuahua. Best of all: Not a fart joke to be found!

Book Four of The Dudes Adventure Chronicles.

Fun on an epic scale for your kids!
Each chapter book provides several stories realistic enough and wacky enough to keep them reading to the delicious conclusion.
The Dudes are a modern, diverse group of preteen boys whose clever ways to screw up turn their suburban neighborhood upside down.

Crazy funny book series for middle-graders!
Start with Save the Dudes or read in any order! In ebook and paperback. Or get the new audiobook with terrific voice actor Mark Sanderlin!

Praise for Save the Dudes (Book 1):
"With one priceless, laugh-out-loud scenario after another, the mother and son team of Johnson and Reynolds delivers a fine tale...

"...the story is given depth by emotional challenges each friend must face, described with subtlety.

"Readers will likely be eager to read the next adventure.

"Hilarious comic mayhem, rounded out by affection and insight." --Kirkus Reviews

Don’t miss the madness in: Dudes in the Middle

Spoilers: Classic humor without movie tie-ins or fart jokes!
Appeals to kids who like funny, realistic fiction without a tacked-on message or ripped-from-the-headlines problem. The perfect read for boys who will run a mile from an "award-winning novel". If you like Beverly Cleary's Henry Huggins or Barbara Robinson's The Worst Best Christmas Pageant Ever, you'll love the Dudes!

Warning: The Dudes’ insane take on parents, school, and the PTA just might be catching.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that readers of the Dudes may imagine some resemblance between the Dudes’ parents and their own.

Makes a great gift or a perfect stocking stuffer.
Hilarious read-a-loud for the whole family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emily Kay Johnson
• Release date: Jan 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781949212129

Emily Kay Johnson

Emily Kay Johnson lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, two boys, and two cats. If you don't know who she is, that's okay. The important people to know about are the Dudes. At least, that's what her writing partner, Tyler, says. Luckily, no madcap plans or crazy schemes EVER happen in Emily's quiet suburb!Her goal, like that of most writers, is to spend as much of the day in a fantasy world as possible.

Book preview

DUDES IN THE MIDDLE

Book Four:

The Dudes Adventure

Chronicles

By Tyler Reynolds

And Emily Johnson

Epic Spiel Press

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

Text copyright © 2019 Emily Kay Johnson

Cover illustration copyright © 2019 Jacquelyn B. Moore

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Smashwords Edition

This book is also available in paperback.

Epic Spiel Press

To my parents, the ultimate multitaskers and defenders against peer pressure!

To the Stewart Fan Club, whose dude hunts were always successful (one way or another).

And to darling Stewart--most likely to exist!

The Dudes Adventure Chronicles

Save the Dudes

Dudes Take Over

Summer of the Dudes

Dudes in the Middle

Dudes Dog Days

Dudes Hard Target--coming soon!

Check them out at thedudeschronicles.com

Join the Dudes’ Readers List at:

https://epicspielpress.emilykayjohnson.com/

To Table of Contents

Table of Contents

1. Dudes On Wheels

2. Dudes Online

3. Dudes All Day

4. Dudes of the Gods

5. Dudes Got Spirit

6. Dude of the Hour

7. Dudes Dead Cool

8. What to Feed Your Dude

9. A Dude’s Dinner

10. Dudes Multitask

11. Eaves-Dude-ing

12. Dudes Show Off

13. Dudes Meltdown

14. Dudes of Science

15. The Dudes and the Devil

16. Demon Dudes

17. Dudes Play the Field

18. Dudes Deception

19. Dudes Graduation Day

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About the Authors

Other Dudes Books

Coming Soon from Epic Spiel Press

1 Dudes On Wheels

Deven turned on his phone’s recording app. The countdown is about to begin for the first-ever test of the N.E.B.M—that’s Nuclear Elephant Ballistic Missile! he intoned in his best newsman voice.

Then he shoved the phone in Nate’s face and said, "The world wants to know: Where did you get a nuclear elephant? And just how radioactive is the elephant?"

Nate stared at Deven through the green safety goggles his mom makes him wear whenever we do experiments.

I’ve told you a thousand times, Deven, said Nate with a sigh. There is NO NUCLEAR ELEPHANT—no elephant of any kind except for the Elephant Gun produced by the Foam Dart Company.

Ryan yanked Deven’s arm toward his own mouth. The Elephant Gun shoots a projectile with enough force to go from our treehouse to Teresa’s back patio, he explained into the microphone. It was my idea to use the dart to detonate a larger explosive! he said proudly, holding up the jumbo bag of Cheesy Thingies, (which was as close as we were going to get to nuclear material).

I figured we were about to prove what Ryan’s mom always says about him: That her son is good at testing limits.

Let’s do it already! said Ryan’s twin, Connor, stuffing the rest of his breakfast peach in his mouth so he would have hands free to shove his brother.

Cut it out, man, your hands are sticky, Ryan complained.

I, Tyler Reynolds, being the most responsible member of the Dudes, grabbed the nuclear material out of Ryan’s hands before he started pummeling his brother. We couldn’t afford to set the bomb off early. (Connor had already eaten the extra bag of Thingies.)

Tyler, you set up the bomb, please, Nate said to me.

I was propping the Thingies bag in the top of a bush by the driveway when the garage door opened, and Deven’s dad, Mr. Singh, backed out in his Mercedes. It was a rare sunny day in September, and he had the sunroof open as if ready to enjoy a pleasant drive to work.

But the driver’s side window slid down, to reveal his scowling face. What are you boys still doing here? he demanded. It is almost time for school.

Oh yeah. I had almost forgotten about school what with the munitions test and all.

See, the Dudes—that’s Ryan, Connor, Nate, Deven and me (Tyler)--have been best friends forever. So we’ve had time to develop a whole band-of-bros vibe. We’ve also had a lot of epic adventures. That summer, for instance, we had explored river rapids, stalked a cryptid, and built an earthquake simulator. In school we had exploited the fake sushi market, gained a kindergarten fan club, and turned a class trip into a government shut-down. And now we were starting middle school.

Unlike elementary school, the middle school is too far away to walk. Our parents tried to get up a carpool, but it didn’t work out. The middle school starts earlier than elementary school, so Dad couldn’t take us because he would be busy dragging my little brother, Jayden, away from cartoons. Nate’s dad couldn’t take us because his eco-friendly electric car barely holds Nate. Mrs. Maguire has a minivan, but her schedule at the hospital is different every day of the week. And Deven’s dad just didn’t want us—especially Connor—in his car (due to the stickiness).

The solution was Deven’s sister, Shaila. She could drop us off on her way to the high school and pick us up in the afternoon. Plus, she has an SUV for hauling her cello for youth symphony and her banners for student government and her equipment for field hockey, and, well, you get the idea.

Mr. Singh got out of his car and strode toward the house, yelling, Shaila! What are you doing?!

Ryan ignored him. Begin the countdown, he commanded.

Connor took his knee out of Ryan’s back, spit out his peach pit, and started counting down: Ten, Nine, Eight…

Ryan took aim.

Seven, Six, Five…

Take cover! shouted Nate.

Four, Three, two…

The Dudes ducked down behind the hydrangea bush.

One! shouted Connor.

Fire in the hole! shouted Ryan as his fingers squeezed the trigger.

From behind the bush, we all watched as the elephant dart made a direct hit on the bag, which, in turn, exploded, releasing a cheesy mushroom cloud which rose over the driveway then broke apart, raining Thingies all over Mr. Singh’s navy blue Mercedes.

Awesome! shouted the Dudes.

Perfect! said Nate, peeling off his goggles.

Teresa’s never gonna see that coming! said Ryan.

We were still celebrating as Shaila came screeching out of the garage and laid on the horn for us to get in. The Dudes gathered up our backpacks, the elephant gun, and its dart and the empty snack bag (Just because we’re part of the military-industrial complex doesn’t mean the Dudes don’t care about the environment!) and climbed into the back two rows of the SUV.

Deven rolled down his window, so we all heard it when Mr. Singh came rushing out of the house and saw his car covered in blotches of radioactive neon orange dust.

No! My car! cried Mr. Singh.

Cheesy shrapnel covered the front seats too.

Mr. Singh looked suspiciously up into the tree that hung over the driveway. How did this impossible thing happen? he said.

Drive, Shaila! said Deven, rolling up his window.

You didn’t have to tell her twice. If anyone in the neighborhood was going to catch a glimpse of her driving her lame brother and his lame-er friends to school, it would be a blurry glimpse.

She dumped us on the corner beside the Maranatha Methodist Church, which was as close as she could get to Sherwood Middle School without joining the drive-up line and getting stuck in traffic. We’d have to walk from there.

Meet me here after school. And don’t be late, she warned us before roaring off.

No problem there. The high school gets out forty whole minutes later than the middle school. We would be cooling our heels for almost an hour every day, waiting for her.

I’m a little worried about the elephant gun, Nate confided when