“Come on,” I said to the dogs. “We’re turning around.”
I’m sure they had no idea what that meant. But I stopped and turned, and that they understood.
Just then something caught my eye.
I was jogging along past the graveyard. I’d run by it once, but I must’ve been looking away. What made me look, made me stop my feet, was a spray of bright yellow flowers. What kind of flowers, I don’t know. I wasn’t good with that, and I’m still not. But they were the kind that bloomed in long stalks.
Now, at face value, there was nothing so strange about it. Just two things made me wonder, and drew me in closer.
One, nobody had died in this town for a really long time. Maybe six or seven years, with the exception of old Mr. Walker, whose body was shipped back to Michigan to be buried with his family. Granted, you can still miss a family member six or seven years later. You can still be thinking of them and want to go visit their grave. But then there was the other odd thing. Those same flowers had been laid on two graves. And the graves were much too far apart to be members of the same family.
I walked through the gate, the dogs wagging behind me. Up to the first grave.
The stone read, “Wanda Jean Paulston, November 10, 1945–December 18, 1952.”
Only seven years old. That must have been a heartbreak for the family. Part of me wondered why I hadn’t heard about it. But people don’t like to tell their kids about stuff like that. Besides, it all happened before I was born.
I walked to the second grave. It said, “Frederick Peter Smith, April 11, 1946–December 18, 1952.”
I stood a minute processing it in my brain. Both died young. Both died on the same day. Somebody missed them both.
But it seemed like a mystery that I didn’t have the clues to solve, and not a very pressing one at that. So they had a mutual friend. So what?
Besides, I’d been in a hurry to get the dogs home.
“Come on,” I said to them. “We’re going.”
And they both gave me this look like it was about time.
We sprinted back to the approximate spot where we’d burst out of the woods, and we burst back in. I ran them home. For every second of those few glorious minutes, I thought about nothing at all.
I was in the hallway opening my locker when Connor came up behind me and said what he said.
“You’re trying out for track, right?”
I turned around and shot him what I’m sure was a confused look.
“School lets out tomorrow.”
“Right. That’s why I was thinking you shouldn’t wait.”
He was trying to be helpful. I know that now, and I might even have known it at the time. But he wasn’t making any sense.
“But . . . what’s the point? I’ll just try out in the fall.”
I wouldn’t. I already knew I didn’t want to. I wanted to run in the woods, not on a flat track. I wanted to run with those dogs, not guys my age, most of whom I didn’t much like or trust.
“Oh,” Connor said. He sounded disappointed. “Coach Haskell might ask you to try out before fall.”
“Why would he do that? How would he even know I’m interested in running these days?”
“You told me you loved running,” he said. “I was talking to Coach. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“I don’t,” I said. But it was a lie. I lied to keep from hurting his feelings. It was dawning on me that I was likely to try out for the team to keep from hurting his feelings as well.
I opened my mouth to say something more, but I was saved from a reply by Libby Weller. She walked by in a huge plaid A-line skirt that swung well below her knees. A short-sleeved sweater. She purposely caught my eye and paused.
“Lucas,” she said. “Heard anything from your brother?”
I was always nervous around Libby. Always had been. “Um . . . no.”
She nodded vaguely and walked on. Then I was forced to look up into Connor’s questioning face.
“If I’d told her I heard from him,” I said, “the next question she’d’ve asked is ‘How is he?’ I just didn’t want to get into that whole thing.”
He nodded his understanding. I pulled my math book out of my locker and slammed it shut, and we walked down the hall together. In silence at first.
Then Connor said, “I really think she likes you.”
He’d said it before. On many occasions. I hadn’t bought it any of the previous times, and I still wasn’t buying it. Thing is, Libby was a very pretty girl. As in, out-of-my-league pretty. And if I believed Connor, it would be a long way down if he was wrong. And I figured he was wrong.
“I don’t think so,” I said, as I always did. Then I added something that had been true all along but had not yet been spoken. “I think it’s just the thing with her brother.”
Libby’s brother Darren had come home from the war a few weeks earlier missing his right leg from the calf down. I mean, did Connor really not notice that Libby always asked how Roy was and never asked anything about me? It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.
I opened my mouth to say more, but never got there. Instead I looked up to see my path down the hallway blocked by the enormous Coach Haskell. He was about six five with shoulders like a mountain, standing spraddle-legged in sweatpants and a school T-shirt. He had his arms crossed over the whistle hanging around his neck. He was trying to catch my eye and I was trying to prevent it.
I made a move to duck around him. But of course it was not to be.
“Painter,” he bellowed.
I stopped.
“Yes, sir?”
“Tomorrow at eleven. You’re trying out for track.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if I just tried out in the fall?”
“I need to
