s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

the elements.
Dean tackled Calgary and dumped him to the ground, sliding a hand over his
mouth.
"Shh. And be still or I'm going to bop you one! I mean it!"
Calgary stopped struggling and stared hard at Dean.
Dean let him go once the guard had moved on.
"What the hell did you do that for?" Calgary asked angrily.
"You were going to give us away."
"You're the one who said we were going to get caught!"
Dean gave up. One thing he'd learned about Calgary Ventnor in the past few
months was that the boy never admitted when he was wrong.
When it came to test grading and Calgary fell just a few points shy of a C,
the boy would just naturally start arguing with the instructors. Dean had been
amazed to see him in action. On the surface Calgary looked just like what he
was: a preacher's kid getting a little bit bigger view of the world before
going back to Leadville to take over his father's flock when the time came.
The thing that attracted Dean to Calgary was the fact the boy was good in his
books.
Something that escaped Dean in one of the classes, especially math, where the
teachers
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%20-%20Mars%20Arena.html put out word problems that sounded like something Doc
would have rambled on about, Calgary just understood easily. Calgary refused
to study, but he'd help Dean when asked.
Of course, Dean usually had to work some kind of tradeoff and give Calgary
something he wanted. Most of the time what Calgary wanted was easy enough,
getting shown a wrestling hold he'd seen Dean use in phys ed, stories about
some of the things Dean had seen while traveling with his dad, Krysty and the
others and sometimes just to hold one of the knives Jak Lauren had left with
him.
What Calgary had wanted for helping with the frog-dissection test had been
different. At first the boy had been kind of cagey about telling Dean what he
wanted. He'd helped
Dean track frogs in the little creeks around the vegetable acreage, nail them
to boards they salvaged from the carpentry shop, then cut them open and name
all the parts.
Dean had seen the insides of lots of things, living and dead, but he'd never
thought about naming what was in there. On a frog, as with most things, there
were parts he'd eat and parts he wouldn't eat. Sometimes, when things had
gotten really desperate for the group, there'd even been parts that he'd
rather not have eaten but did anyway.
Almost a dozen slow and luckless frogs came and went, some in more pieces than
others as Dean got better at naming the parts and got better at cutting really
carefully, and
Calgary still didn't say what he wanted in exchange.
Dean had even asked, as if he were just curious.
Calgary hadn't said.
Then the test came and went.
Dean asked again, telling him he didn't know why he was keeping all
closemouthed about it Calgary said to wait.
Last week the test results had come in. And though Dean didn't figure himself
a scholar, and biology wasn't all that interesting anyway, he'd made an A on
the test. He was proud, but at the same time he knew Calgary would be figuring
Dean owed him big.
Of course, Calgary had. And when he'd told Dean what he wanted, down in the
root cellar of the school putting away canned vegetables on their rotation,
Dean had had to ask him to repeat himself.
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"Phaedra Lemon," Calgary had said, "sleeps in the nude. I have it on good
authority from some of the girls I know."
Dean hadn't thought it was a big deal. Nudity was just something that happened
to folks when they didn't have their clothes on. He couldn't see why Calgary
would be so interested in seeing a naked girl.
"Because," Calgary had informed him in a strained voice, "I've never seen
one."
"Oh," Dean had said. Evidently Mr. Ventnor was really strict, because
Leadville had gaudies where a woman could be seen naked for very little jack.
Since the quest to discover whether Phaedra Lemon really slept in the
altogether involved some subterfuge and breaking of school rules, Dean's
interest had been piqued.
And he'd made the plan that had brought them here tonight.
"Keep your head down," Dean admonished the boy, "and follow me."
Calgary grabbed Dean's ankle. "I've changed my mind."
Dean couldn't believe it. "What?"
"I don't want to go." Calgary sucked on his teeth and couldn't meet Dean's
eyes.
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"It's all you've talked about for a week."
"I no longer think this is a good idea."
Dean had noticed whenever Calgary got stubborn, his diction improved. "Fine.
Suit yourself. Now that I'm out here, I think I'm going to go have a peek."
Calgary grabbed his arm. "You can't do that!"
"Why not?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]