“Wait, what?”
“Hey Heather,” called Ben. Heather sat up, shaded her eyes, and squinted.
“Ben Palmer? What are you doing here?” asked Heather.
“Me? I’m just hanging out with Jack.” Ben cocked his thumb over his shoulder. “You know Jack Randolph? He lives down the street.
Heather glanced past Ben to Jack who was just struggling out of the woods and starting across the yard. Jack had a vine stuck in his hair and was trying to untangle himself.
“Never met him,” said Heather and turned back to Ben. “You guys shouldn’t be sneaking around through those woods. My dad gets pretty mad when he sees boys trespassing back there.”
“Hey, who’s trespassing? We’re just going to the store,” said Ben. “Besides, Jack’s dad owns all of these woods behind here.”
“I seriously doubt that,” said Heather. “I have to go in now. I have gymnastics in an hour.”
Heather turned away and strode back to the patio doors on the back of her house. Ben turned and intercepted Jack just as he was catching up. When they had taken a few steps back towards the woods Ben leaned in and whispered to Jack: “Isn’t she hot?”
“Who? The mean one?” asked Jack.
Ben punched Jack lightly on this shoulder.
“Ow — watch that shit!”
They looked at each other, laughed, and trotted off back into the woods.
After spending most of the afternoon meandering through the neighborhood, Ben and Jack finally reached Christy’s, a convenience store about a mile away from Jack’s house. Jack hadn't been there on his own in a while, since before Gabe had disappeared. Back then, Christy's marked the limit of how far Jack could travel alone.
Back before Jack and Ben were toddlers, Christy's was also a gas station. It still had an island, but no longer had pumps. The boys arrived from the back and hopped the low fence. Inside, they found the typical convenience store offerings: chips, soda, beer, small boxes and cans of this and that. Everything was more expensive than the IGA down in Thomkinsville, but not as bad as the chain stores that specialized in lottery tickets and cigarettes. A string of Christmas bells announced their arrival.
A fifty-ish woman behind the counter greeted them as they entered: “Hi boys!”
“Hi,” said Jack. He and Ben turned left and headed back to the refrigerator cases along the back of the store.
“Hey, we forgot money,” hissed Jack.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Ben as he pointed to his back pocket. “I got it covered.”
Jack wrinkled his brow and paused. Ben always had better toys and clothes, but Jack usually brought the cash.
“What about these?” Ben was holding up a box of Twinkies.
“Yuck! You know I can’t stand those things.”
“They’re good for you — put hair on your chest,” taunted Ben.
“You can keep it,” shrugged Jack. “We better get stuff for tomorrow morning too.”
The boys collected everything they would need for their campground dinner and breakfast and headed up to the front of the store loaded with supplies.
“Wow, stocking up?” asked the woman behind the counter. She recognized Jack from being from the neighborhood. Her name tag identified her as “Sally.”
“We’re running away,” smiled Ben.
“Oh! In that case, you’re not going to get very far,” she said.
“We’ll be back when we get hungry again.” Ben was never afraid to banter with adults, Jack looked on with admiration. He had always been shy around Sally.
Sally finished ringing them up — “Today is going to cost you fifteen-sixty-seven, we’ll see about tomorrow.”
Ben reached for his wallet and carefully fished out a bill. He slid a one hundred dollar bill across the counter. Jack looked on with wide eyes. Sally reached for it and paused with her hand in mid-air.
“You got anything smaller, big spender?” her tone was no longer as jovial.
Ben turned red and hastily drew back the bill.
“Um, yeah, I think so.”
A few seconds later he pushed a twenty across the counter.
“Sorry.”
“No harm done,” replied Sally. “If you need to break that hundred, Bill is here until noon. He doesn’t like me to take anything above a fifty.”
“Thanks, Sally,” said Ben, still looking down.
Sally gave Ben his change and he shoved it into his front pocket. She collected the groceries and handed each of them a bag.
“Enjoy those burgers,” said Sally as they headed out the door.
As they walked through the parking lot, Jack looked sideways at Ben, wondering if he should ask about the money. Ben seemed to know what he wanted to ask.
“My dad only had hundreds,” said Ben and then paused. “I wanted to break it so I would have smaller bills. My mom only gave me one twenty.”
“I hereby dub this the first official hamburger of the summer!” Ben said as he pulled a charred lump of beef from his stick.
Jack clapped his right hand against his leg with approval: “Bravo! Well done, well done! Here, take a bun for that.”
“Burgers are awesome over a fire. They should always cook them like this,” said Ben.
Jack hunched down a little and squinted through the bushes so he could spy at the house. Their campsite was on the edge of the woods, just about thirty yards from the back door. They had a tall maple and some thick bushes to give their campsite some privacy.
“Looks like my parents are having chicken again,” said Jack.
“You can't see that from there,” said Ben.
Jack laughed. He balanced his burger on his knee so he could get some chips and poke the fire with his stick.
“So what do you want to do tomorrow?” Jack asked through a mouthful of chips.
“Whatever the day brings, Jacky,” replied Ben. “Oh, I know — we should go hunting.”
“Nothing’s in season. Besides, you’ve never killed anything.”
“Man… It was just an idea. You don’t have to freak out about it,” replied Ben. He tied a plastic grocery bag on the end of his hamburger stick and waved it over the flames, until it caught. “What about fishing then?”
“You're burning that bag,” said Jack. “I like mine rare.”
“You're just pissed because I thought of it first,” said Ben. “First official garbage torch!” he exclaimed, waving the stick over his head.
The boys laughed.
“Seriously,” said Ben. “What about fishing?”
“We’re not going to catch anything around here,” said Jack. “We could hike over to the old quarry. There’s no fish there, but it’s only a couple miles, and we can go swimming.”
“I’ll go over there, but I don’t know about swimming. It’s probably still pretty cold,” said Ben. He smiled — “Maybe we should drop by Heather’s on the way.”
“What’s with you and that girl?” asked Jack. “She’s barely hot, and she’s a total bitch.”
“Whatever. Someday you’ll understand.”
“Yeah. You know? That’s true,” said Jack as he looked up to night sky. “Eventually, I’ll grow up. But you know what? You’ll still be mostly retarded.”
A piece of meat bounced off of Jack’s forehead. “Hey!” yelled Jack. “Don’t waste it.”
Jack stood up and started collecting trash while he was still chewing on his last bite of hamburger.
