Cat Tales Read Free Page A

the dojo, I had finally found a place where I belonged, where I fit in, with Sensei and the kids he groomed as fighters. I never stood for belt testing, but I stuck out the training program, living with the bruises, sprains, and occasional broken rib. I was good. But mostly, as far as the school counselors and their opposite number, the bully-masters, were concerned, I was just really good at looking dangerous.
    I also worked after school at the dojo, my first real job, cleaning floors and the workout mats, washing windows, general handyman stuff. Sensei taught me how to do the books, pay the taxes, order supplies. He was my first real friend. Even if he did knock me silly when we sparred.
    I took Bobby’s hand, his flesh soft and moist, and held it, drawing his unwilling eyes to mine. “As soon as I get the trainee position and get started, I’ll schedule a few days off and come back. I promise.”
    Tears filled his eyes. “Okay,” he whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”
    And he wasn’t. Bobby’s parents had been killed in an automobile accident with a dn tent witrunk driver. Though his grandmother had taken in his three brothers and sisters, she had decided she didn’t have the strength to raise a kid with a seventy-four IQ. So she dumped him here, which I understood on one level, but it still made my brain boil. Bobby went home to Gramma’s to visit on Christmas, on Easter, and for a week in the summer. That was it. That was as much as his grandmother could take of her less-than-normal grandkid.
    Of course I never went anywhere, but I was used to it. I had always been alone.
    Weak. Prey, my inner voice whispered. My own personal demon, never acknowledged aloud, never alluded to, never hinted at. The counselors would have thought me insane or possessed, depending on their religious beliefs. Either way, I’d have been medicated and sent to more counseling sessions. And been subjected to more torment by my housemates. Again, I shoved it deep and silent.
    “I’ll be bringing you a present,” I said. “Something from the mountains.”
    Bobby’s eyes lit up. “From your spirit quest?”
    I dropped his hand and chucked him on the chin. “Right. See you soon.” Before he could delay me more, I turned the key and gave the Yamaha a bit of gas. It spat for a sec and then shot me forward. Into the future. I wove through the grounds of the children’s home one last time. I would come back. But Bobby was right. This would never be my home again, and it would always-ever-after be different.
    Bethel Nondenominational Christian Children’s Home was located near the Sumter National Forest in South Carolina, within spitting distance of Georgia and North Carolina, in a locale with more rednecks than all other ethnic groups put together, and ten times more livestock than people. Maybe a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. The place I was going was a lot less populated and a lot more remote.
    I dropped down my face shield, cutting the hot wind but making a steam bath inside with my own breath. Speeding, I passed the main offices and lifted a thumb to the one person standing outside to see me go—Belinda Smith, one of my former houseparents. She smiled and waved, and I knew that of all the people at Bethel—besides Bobby—she really was sad to see me leave. She had liked my essays.
    I glanced in the rearview to see her place a hand over her mouth, and I could have sworn that she was crying. Not possible. No way.
    I looked back at the street and the road before me. Gunned the motor again. The outer gates neared, passed, and fell behind. The bike tore out of the grounds of Bethel, along the main road, and out of the city.
    Soon I was gunning it up the mountains.
    The quality of the air changed around every bend, freshening each time the elevation rose. The world changed as I two-wheeled into my future and—I hoped—my past.
    I didn’t have a history. I had wandered out of the Sumter National Forest when I was somewhere