Balance Keepers #1: The Fires of Calderon Read Free

ribs as he picked up two Tiles with matching symbols.
    “Uh . . . yeah,” Albert said. “I guess so. And blue eyes. It brought me a letter from Dad. I’m delivering a piece of mail.”
    “To the woods, eh?”
    Farnsworth let out a little whine from behind Albert. Albert sighed. He just wanted to get out of there and deliver the letter. Why so many questions from Pap?
    “How’d you know? Actually, it doesn’t matter. I gotta go!”
    “Don’t get lost,” Pap said.
    Albert thought he heard two of the old guys grumble about something, but it was hard to hear what they were saying. Albert shrugged his shoulders and walked to the back door of the old post office, Farnsworth right on his heels.
    The main road was just as familiar to Albert as slicing open the top of an envelope. They went a few blocks, passing by a crack in the road that looked like a smile. An old woman on a bike rode past.
    “Hello, Virginia!” she said to Albert. “You’re looking lovely today.”
    Luckily she didn’t stop, because that would have almost certainly led to a major chat session with someone who thought he was a girl, and that was a conversation he didn’t have time for. Albert double-timed it to the edge of the woods and stared into the maze of trees. The wind blew, making the branches of the trees shiver. It almost looked like they were waving Albert in.
    Farnsworth raced onto the path, leaping over a small boulder and ducking under a fallen tree in nothing flat.
    “Doggy sugar high,” Albert surmised, and though he couldn’t say exactly why, he had a feeling an adventure was about to begin. “So this is what it feels like to deliver mail. Cool.”
    Albert followed, breathless, as Farnsworth leaped over tree roots and uneven patches in the ground. It was dangerous work, running through these woods, but Albert was good at this stuff. In gym class, he’d beaten all of his schoolmates in the mile run, and then, right after, he’d climbed the tall rope in the gym in just twenty-four seconds.
    Albert kept up a good pace, following Farnsworth’s wagging tail through the trees. Every so often, the animal would stop, sniff the ground, and bark. They hadn’t crossed paths with the slingshot tree yet, and the dog seemed to understand where he was going, so they kept on.
    Farnsworth was small and could slip beneath thorn patches without gaining so much as a scratch, while Albert had to stop and find a way around. It was exciting running through the woods, crashing through little streams that soaked Albert’s shoes. He felt like he was Indiana Jones about to stumble onto some hidden cave with gold piled high to the ceiling. It was infinitely better than sorting through dead letters.
    They finally passed the first marker on the map Albert’s dad had drawn—a tree that did, in fact, look like a giant slingshot without the string, its limbs split into two branches spreading outward. Albert imagined himself shooting massive rocks into the sky, knocking down forest zombies and wildebeests.
    Farnsworth barked, reminding Albert of the mission they had. The dog took off again, forking left around the slingshot tree. Albert followed, running down what looked like a worn trail in the ground, as if someone had passed through here many times before. Albert wondered how many times his dad had come down this way to deliver mail. And why, after all this time, hadn’t he told Albert there was a person living in the woods?
    As he ran, Albert’s shoelace got caught on a stray root. “Wait!” He called to Farnsworth to stop, but the dog was fast, and by the time Albert had released himself, the mutt had disappeared into the trees.
    “Farnsworth!” Albert yelled, but the dog didn’t return. He looked back in the direction from which he’d come, and saw that the ground was thick with leaves and roots crisscrossing one another like a maze. He shivered, but then stood up straight.
    “Dad’s counting on me to deliver this letter,” he said to