Chapter 3

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"Hey!" growled a five-year old Ash. Justin was picking on another kid again. 
Ash didn't see who they were picking on and didn't care. Justin looked up 
and saw the bane of his existence; Little A.

"Forget nerdy, get him!" shouted Justin. Mike and Trevor jumped up from 
their positions on either side of the victim and took off after Justin. Ash 
was in the lead, running just ahead of his pursers.

'What makes them think that today will be any different?' Ash asked himself. 
'If they haven't caught me in the last year, do they really expect to catch 
me now?' Ash saw the opportunity to lose the losers and took it.

"Rassp!" Ash turned and stuck out his tongue at the bullies. Ash jumped onto 
a garbage can, onto a fire escape and ran up the ladder. Ash pulled the 
ladder up after him and giggled.

'They never think to look up.' Ash was going just fast enough to round a 
corner and pull it off every time. Ash called it his "sure fire escape". 
Even if they looked up, they couldn't reach him.

"Don't let him get away!" Justin screamed as he ran into the alley. Ash 
watched them run by with amusement and chuckled. As soon as he was sure they 
were a block away, Ash jumped down.

"Heh! That's pretty smart." Ash was startled to find a small boy with wild, 
unruly red hair and thick glasses watching him.

"Umm, thanks," Ash muttered, embarrassed. The boy looked down and smiled 
shyly.

"I should be thanking you. Those guy would have had me for lunch." Ash put 
an arm behind his head and laughed