I began trying to picture what Max or anyone would say if they could've seen me then, off on an adventure with Dusting.
"Dusting?" they'd say. "We've listened to some pretty tall stories, but that could never happen, not in a million years. If there's one person he hates more than anybody else it'd have to be you."
"No, it's true," I'd say. "That's all changed. He likes me now..." "Stop muttering," Dusting snapped. "We're here."
When you run away from home, spend two hours in a cupboard full of smelly socks, and then fall down an enormous hole, the last thing you'd normally want is to be pulled out by Ernest Dusting, the meanest, toughest kid in school.