Shades of Simon Gray Read Online Free Page B

the doorknob, the other on Simon’s shoulder. “Rob Fisher’s having a party Saturday night. You want to come with us?”
    Danny could tell by the look on Simon’s face he was suspicious. He didn’t trust them for a second. And why should he? They were about to sucker him into taking over Walter’s place.
    Within a week Simon Gray was putty in their hands.
    School was the last place Danny wanted to be that morning, but he knew he had to go. So did the others. They didn’t have a choice.
    Danny rolled off the bed, pulled a pair of boxers from his top drawer, jammed his legs into cargo pants, yanked a navy T-shirt over his wet hair, and grabbed a cotton shirt from the closet. Usually he spent several minutes working on his hair to get it just right—short dark spikes, tipped platinum blond, carefully arranged to strike a balance somewhere between casual unkemptness and studied artifice. That morning, without even bothering to look in the mirror, he hardly took time to whip the comb across the top of his head.
    Danny was halfway down the front walk when he noticedthat the bare tree branches were choked with crows, crows in every tree in his yard, and in the McAllisters’ yard next door, and every yard all the way down the block, for as far as he could see. Even worse, the birds had left their calling cards all over his black Mustang. Danny shook his fist at them, flipped them his middle finger, and shouted an obscenity as he climbed behind the wheel. He didn’t have time for this right now. If he didn’t get a move on, he’d be late. But even with all he had on his mind, he couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that the birds were laughing their heads off at him as he peeled out of the driveway.
    Two minutes later, just as the first bell rang, he pulled into a parking lot cluttered with crows. He wondered if they’d followed him there, then decided he was getting paranoid. The birds lined the roof of the school, rows of feathered soldiers in shiny black uniforms awaiting orders. They sent up a raucous cry as Danny headed for the front steps.
    He slipped his shades from his shirt pocket, although he didn’t think for a second they would be much help protecting his eyes if the birds attacked. Crows always went after their enemies in groups. Outright mobbed them. They’d even been known to eat their own, if they found them already dead. That much he knew.
    Right now he was quaking in his Nikes. He’d had a horror of birds, any kind of birds, ever since he’d read the story of Prometheus in seventh grade, read how he was bound to the rocky peak of the Caucasus, where each day an eagle pecked away at his liver. And all because he stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it to mankind. Thatwas what happened when you pissed off Zeus, or any of the gods, back in those days. If they didn’t like what you were doing, they made sure you knew.
    Danny stood there, one hand hovering above his sunglasses, a visor protecting his eyes in case of an attack. He studied the crows, trying to calculate how fast he could make it to the front doors.
    From somewhere behind him, he heard, “Hey, Giannetti, wait up.” He didn’t have to look to know it was Kyle.
    He jogged up to Danny’s side, a living ad for J.Crew in his khaki chinos and blue shirt. An olive green backpack hung from one shoulder. He didn’t seem at all bothered by the crows. In fact, he didn’t even seem to notice them. “My house. After school, okay?”
    “I’ve got track.”
    “Skip it. This is important.”
    Danny nodded. He knew Kyle would never ask him to miss practice unless something serious was going on.
    Feeling less intimidated now that reinforcements had arrived, Danny took the concrete steps two at a time, yanked open the door, and headed down the hall. Kyle was right on his heels. He clamped his hand on Danny’s shoulder just as Danny was about to walk into homeroom. Danny was instantly reminded of that day in the custodian’s closet, Kyle with his