“What are we gonna do?” Eddie said. “We can’t let them—”
Weezy nudged him. “We’re going to stay here until they’re gone, then we’re going to have to walk home.”
“That’l take forever. And that’s my racer!”
“Better than what might happen if they catch us,” she said.
Jack didn’t know about that, but he felt a surge of anger as he watched them throw Weezy’s bike into the trunk. Then Eddie’s. His would be next. How
was he going to explain the loss of his BMX?
He glanced into the clearing. He could just make out the rim of the spong in the wash of light from the search beam.
And that gave him an idea.
“Rocks!” he whispered as he raked his fingers through the sand around him. “I need a couple of rocks!”
“Come on, Jack,” Weezy said. “You don’t real y think throwing rocks at them wil —”
“Not at them! Find me a couple of good-size rocks.”
Jack’s fingers found the edge of a piece of sandstone. He pul ed it out.
“Here’s one,” Eddie said and handed him another fist-size piece.
The crumbly, rust-colored rock was al over the Barrens.
Jack looked again and saw the suit wheeling his bike toward the trunk.
Dirty, rotten, sneering—
He crawled to the edge of the copse, rose to his knees, and hurled one of the rocks toward the spong. It missed, landing near the edge instead. But it
made a loud enough
“You hear that?” he heard the suit say.
He let Jack’s bike fal and leaped to the spotlight, sweeping its beam back and forth across the clearing. Jack waited for it to pass the spong, then
tossed his second rock.
This one sailed over the rim and landed with a loud splash.
“There!” the trooper cried, pointing. “Must be some sort of a pond. That’s where they’re hiding.”
Leaving the light trained on the spong, the two of them ran toward it. “It worked!” Weezy cried, grabbing the back of Eddie’s shirt. “Let’s go!” “Wait,” Jack said.
“Remember what Mrs. Clevenger said this afternoon about that trapper coming back?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Wel , if she was right …”
“Ohmygod!” Weezy clapped a hand over her mouth. “You don’t think—?”
A cry from the trooper cut her off. He staggered, yel ed again, then fel , grabbing at his ankle.
Jack pumped a fist. “Yes!”
“What happened?” the suit said, starting toward him.
Then he too cried out and dropped to the ground—where he shouted again. He rose to his knees, struggling to remove the steel trap that had closed
around his elbow.
He looked so comical, Jack had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing out loud. He wanted to stand up and shout,
He turned to Weezy.
A steady stream of curses floated from the clearing as Jack led the others to the rear of the cruiser where he helped Eddie and Weezy pul their bikes
from the trunk. Then he ran around to the side and retrieved his own.
“Ready to go?”
Eddie looked ready to jump out of his skin. “Oh, man, are they ever gonna be
“What for?” Jack said. “We didn’t set those traps. It was their idea to go wandering in there in the dark.”
“Stil ,” Weezy said, “we’re going to have to cut through the trees, otherwise they’l just catch up to us again.”
