Bang Read Free Page B

and tinted windows, probably with the bass cranked up.”
    I still can’t believe what I’ve seen.
    â€œYou got a gun so you could impress a girl?” I say. “Geez, she wouldn’t even talk to you.”
    JD keeps right on smiling. “Maybe I lost the battle,” he says, “but I’m going to win the war.”
    Right.

Chapter Five
    I’m in the grocery store, stacking soup cans, and I’m thinking, Best friend or not, I should never have hooked up with JD again.
    He got into some trouble last year. JD is like that, always into something. He always has some weed, and everyone knows you can buy it off him. But this last time, JD really laid into a guy. He says it was because of what the guy said about Leah. But he hurt the guy pretty bad. Thecops got involved. In the end, JD’s father got him off by agreeing to send JD to a special camp over the summer. JD says it was like a prison camp. The counselors yell at you all day. You have to get up at six in the morning, and you’re always doing something—hiking for days at a time, going on long canoe trips, always something physical so that you collapse at the end of the day. And it doesn’t matter what the weather is, either. If you go on a weeklong hike and it rains every day, too bad for you.
    When JD got back, he was tanned and a lot stronger than he used to be. He acts differently now too, but probably not in the way the camp hoped he would. He has more confidence. He knows more people. He’s told me about some of the guys he met at the camp. Boy, I bet he hasn’t told his dad about those guys. Some of them sound scary. I shouldn’t have hooked up with him again.
    But he called me when he got back.
    And I was hoping to get with Leah, whowas also away at camp all summer, but not the same kind of camp. She had a job as a counselor at a kids’ camp up in cottage country.
    So when he called and asked me to come over so we could catch up, I said, “Sure.” But I should have said no. I should have stayed away from him. Then it never would have happened.
    The worst thing is, it was my fault.
    What happened: After the girls pile into the black Mustang with the tinted windows, JD and I get on our bikes and ride through the park. I can tell he’s antsy, probably because he didn’t get what he wanted. He didn’t get the redhead. I try to get his mind off the girl. I say we should get something to eat. He’s not interested. We keep riding until finally we’re out of the park that runs along the beach. We turn and ride north and find ourselves close to another park that’s more or less in our neighborhood. This is the park with the swings we were on the day before. I’m really hungry now.Partly it’s because of all the weed and partly it’s because by now it’s three o’clock in the afternoon. We’ve been riding all day. The only thing in my stomach is a bowl of cold cereal, and it’s probably not there anymore because I ate it hours ago.
    We’re riding along and I just happen to glance down an alley. And I just happen to see one of those canteen vans. You know, the ones that you see on the street down by city hall. The ones that show up at construction sites. You can buy coffee and pop, cookies and donuts, sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, fries. All that kind of stuff. So there’s one sitting in the alley. The rear door is open and I can see inside. My eye goes right to a rack filled with bags of potato chips. Suddenly there’s nothing in the world I want more than a bag of potato chips. Maybe two bags.
    I detour into the alley and lean my bike up against a brick wall. Behind me I hear JD say, “Now what?”
    I check out the alley. No one is around. None of the buildings have windows that look down into the alley. No one can see me.
    I duck into the van and grab a couple of bags of potato chips. Then I see a freezer. Inside are some