The Pricker Boy Read Online Free Page B

the side paths.
    “Cricket!” he calls, his voice calm and gentle. “Hey,Cricket, if you come out I’ll give you a whole pack of bottle rockets! I’ll even help you light them!”
    I don’t waste my time calling out. The Cricket’s never going to call back, regardless of what bribes we offer. The game, the hiding, is always more fun than anything anyone has to offer. I run past the old fort and the twin climbing trees. The ground under my feet is damp and pretty cold, and it makes me think of winter and ice and the skin of snow that had covered everything for months. But underneath the canopy of trees the air is humid. I can feel it when I draw breath. Finally, Whale’s Jaw looms in front of me. I trot up to it, allowing my hand to drift across its rough surface. I pass beyond the granite slabs, step around the fire pit. All around me I can feel the woods. I know the roots and stones that’ll trip you if you’re not paying attention, know the hole on the far side of Whale’s Jaw where the chipmunks live, know the poison ivy that grows along the left side of the stone wall at the top of the hill. I can feel all the years that we’ve played out here layered one on top of another.
    But today more than anything I can feel that stone wall and the border that it marks between the woods that we know and the woods that we never cross over into. It’s not good to go back there alone. I should wait for Ronnie, but I can’t. The Cricket doesn’t always understand borders, and I have to make sure that he hasn’t gone back there.
    I walk up the ridge toward the marker at the break in the stone wall. We call that marker the Widow’s Stone,though I don’t remember why. It’s a tall stone, like a square post stuck in the ground that rests flush against the right side of the break in the wall. The top is flat and broad enough to stretch your hand upon. We used to dare each other to go up there alone and slap the top of it when we were the Cricket’s age.
    I’m almost at the Widow’s Stone when I hear Ronnie’s voice.
    “There he is!” he calls from behind me. I take four steps backward and turn around. There, sitting on top of Whale’s Jaw, is the Cricket. He claps his hands, points up the path at me, and laughs silently into his open palm, slapping his knee with his other hand. I march down the path. Goose pimples rise on my back. I rub my thumb across the pads of the fingers of my right hand. STUCKS. I curl my two index fingers together and tug. ANGRY AT. I curl the three middle fingers of my right hand toward the palm and wiggle my thumb and pinkie. CRICKET.
    The Cricket pouts, lifts his fist, bends it at the wrist, and cocks it back and forth. I immediately lift mine and nod it up and down. I fold my arms, glaring at him. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of Ronnie. “He didn’t mean anything,” Ronnie says quietly.
    “I don’t like him out here alone!” I snap back, but I can feel my anger dissipating. I can never stay angry at the Cricket very long. I shake my head. I lift my fist, shake it back and forth, and then hook my index fingers and tug. NO … NOT ANGRY. I cross my arms and line up thepinkies of both hands side by side. BROTHERS. I open my right hand and wiggle the middle finger toward my chest. COME TO ME.
    The Cricket smiles, then skitters down the back of Whale’s Jaw. He leaps to the ground next to me, grabs my arm, and leans back, swinging off it from side to side. He makes a fist and taps it over his heart while making a sucking sound out of the side of his mouth.
    “You’re forgiven,” I say aloud, and he covers my mouth to stop me talking.
    Ronnie has walked up the path near the ridge. He looks like an ostrich wiggling its skinny neck to grab a glimpse of what lies beyond the Widow’s Stone.
    “Ronnie?” I call.
    He hops back down the path. “Still gives me the shivers,” he says, shaking his head back and forth.
    The three of us leave the woods together.

R onnie is