The Witchfinder Wars Read Online Free Page B

front. Tommy, here
are the keys for the Jag; Ray put a map to your school on the seat.
Out you all go." Grand made shooing motions with one hand, but I
noticed she was eying the remaining biscuits.
    I grabbed the keys, snatched a biscuit and
ran.
    ***
    James P. Cothran High School was a long low
brick building on a hill at the edge of town. From the parking
lot—the highest spot around—I could see woods falling away on the
slope behind a shabby stadium. I could just make out the glint of
water off beyond it. A pond or river.
    "Hey, my man; nice car!"
    I looked at the guy who was just getting out
of a rickety old pickup truck either rust colored from neglect, or
possibly constructed entirely of rust. He was husky, almost flabby,
with dark hair and eyes, and eyes with a look I'd seen in too many
before. He wanted my car and he hated me for having it, but he
didn't dare show it cause, dude, I must be rich to have a car like
that, and he was not.
    "Hi," I said. "I'm Tommy Hopkins." I held
out a hand.
    He took it and tried to turn it to
hamburger, but I've dealt with his kind before. I work out for just
such reasons.
    "Name's Jordan Raquel. You must be the one
who's living in the old Berwick house, huh? My dad told me
somebody'd bought it."
    "If it's a big old Victorian on, let's see,
Clarke Street, then that's me all right. Your dad a realtor?"
    "Nope, he runs a yard service. I help him
cut grass and stuff. He's been taking care of the grounds at the
old Berwick place since the last people left it. He said last week
it'd been sold. Your old man must have a ton of money, dude. That
place is really something."
    I smiled. "It is a big house."
    I saw no reason to mention it wasn't my
dad's biggest house, or his only one.
    "So, aren't you afraid to drive something
like that to school?"
    I looked at the Jag. It stood out in the
parking lot full of old cars and trucks like a bright green jelly
bean in a pile of dirty pebbles.
    Maybe I should start taking the bus.
    "It's my dad's. He's out of town. Business
trip."
    Jordan punched me in the shoulder.
    "I get it. While the cat's away, huh?"
    He hefted a ragged backpack over one
shoulder. I could hear glass clinking inside. Come to think of it,
he probably didn't have any books to put in it yet.
    "Uh, sure. Hey, can you show me how to get
to the principal's office? New kid and all that."
    "You bet. Follow me, my man."
    ***
    Principal Fisher shook my hand for the fifth
time and then shoved a handful of papers at me. "Anything I can do,
son, don't hesitate to ask. Our little town is mighty glad to have
your family move in. We surely are. So just let me know if I can
help at all, you hear?"
    From the looks of some of the town I'd seen
as I drove to school, I wasn't surprised the principal was glad
we'd moved here. Closed businesses, empty warehouses, storefronts
with all the glass broken out. Manning looked like a lot of the
little towns my dad moved us to all over the country.
    My dad's company, WFG Ltd., is a big
multi-national conglomerate which builds factories, businesses, and
clinics all over the place. Plenty of towns we'd moved to in the
past looked as bad or worse than Manning, and I knew this one would
look a whole lot different soon. Some of it already did; I'd passed
a couple of streets where the old buildings had new fronts, where
businesses were moving in and apartments were being offered for
rent. Yep, this town would be different when we left. I just hoped
it wouldn't be too soon. Grand seemed to like this place. Like it a lot .
    But everything depended on Dad, of course.
He was due to arrive later today. We'd find out then what our time
frame might be.
    I didn't have much trouble finding my
classes. A couple of wings of the school building were shut down,
and the entire student enrollment couldn't have been more than a
few hundred. My last school, right outside of Palermo, Italy, had
nearly two thousand students. The one before that, in San Diego,
had over three thousand.