Excerpt from Huge by James Fuerst, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Now she laid her bag on her lap, stooped over it, thrust both hands inside, and began clawing and sifting its contents like a miner panning for gold. I scooted my butt to the edge of the bed, eager for her to cut to the chase. That smile of hers had tipped me off. I'd seen it more times than you could count on an abacus, and it always meant the same thing: she had an idea, something sneaky or secret; she was up to something, and any second I'd be up to something right along with her. That's how she'd always been with me. She knew I got into trouble more often than most people got out of bed, and she usually took a minute or two to remind me all about it when we were alone. But that never stopped her from egging me on, coming up with pranks or stunts I could pull just for the hell of it, convincing me to do them. She told me boys had to have some mischief in them or they might as well wear dresses and party socks and play with dolls, and just because I'd taken a running leap way over the line in fifth grade, it didn't mean I'd lost the right to mix it up and have some fun.

Excerpted from Huge by James Fuerst Copyright © 2009 by James Fuerst. Excerpted by permission of Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.