Crash Read Free Page A

room and bam, you were there.
    “Didn’t you ever live in a two-story house?” I asked him.
    He thought. “In North Dakota we lived on the second floor of a house, but somebody else lived on the first floor.”
    I shook my head. “Weird.”
    His room was weird, too. “Where’s your toys?” I said.
    He dove under his bed and pulled something out. “Here!”
    “What is it?”
    “A Conestoga wagon. It’s just like the one my great-great-
great
-grandfather Webb went out to North Dakota in. My great-grandfather made it for me. He said there’s a place in North Dakota where you can still see the ruts in the ground from all the wagon trains.”
    It was wood, not even painted, old-looking, about ready for the junk heap. He pulled it across the floor.
    “It wobbles,” I said.
    He just kept grinning at it, like it was going to stand up on its bind wheels and bark.
    I had been thinking about how some kids call their grandfathers “Pop-Pop.” “So,” I said, “what do you call him? Pop-Pop-Pop?”
    I was too busy laughing at myself to hear his answer. I looked around. “So where’s the rest?”
    Now he was pulling the wagon in circles. “The rest of what?”
    “Your toys.”
    He pointed to the wagon. “There it is.”
    “I mean the rest.” I looked under his bed. I nosed into his closet. “Dump trucks. Fire engines. Cars. Cranes. Steam shovels. Batman. Spider-Man. Dino—”
    “Wait!” he squawked. He ran to a bookcase filled with books and grabbed an old pretzel tin. He pried off the lid. “It’s not a toy, I guess, but it is pretty neat.”
    I looked. “Dirt?”
    “It’s dried mud from the Missouri River. There’s an old legend. If you scoop up some from the bottom of the river and you wait fifty years, the mud can heal whatever’s wrong with you. All you have to do is add water and make it mud again and put it where it hurts, and the hurt goes away.”
    I snorted. “You believe that?”
    He shrugged. “Maybe. Anyway, my great-grandfather got this mud from the bottom of the river sixty-four years ago. Next to my Conestoga wagon, it’s the best thing I have.” He closed the tin and put it back on the shelf.
    Mud.
    I shook my head and went to the window. How pitifulcould you get? He had only one toy to his name—and what was worse, the dumb porkroll didn’t even know how bad off he was.
    It was depressing to be in that room, so I was glad when his mother called, “Boys! Dinner! Come and get it!”

6
    At first I thought they were hamburgers. But the color wasn’t right. Fish cakes? I took a bite. Big mistake.
    Both parents were looking at me. The mother said, “Penn, didn’t you tell your friend?”
    Webb gawked at his mother. His eyes bulged. A pained look came over his face. “Oops … I think I forgot.”
    “Forgot what?” I said.
    “You didn’t really forget, did you, son?” the father said.
    Webb looked sheepish. “I guess not.”
    I guessed I was getting a little tired of all this claptrap. I aimed myself straight at Webb. “What am I supposed to know?”
    Webb’s eyes shifted to me. “I was supposed to tell you we’re vegetarians.”
    I had never heard the word. “What’s that?” I said. Meanwhile I’m thinking: Are these people ninja tomatoes or something?
    “We don’t eat meat,” Webb said.
    “And you didn’t tell him,” said the father, “because you were afraid if you did, he might not want to come for dinner.”
    Webb nodded. His face was in his plate.
    I was still wondering if I heard him right. “You mean, you don’t eat hot dogs?”
    All three said, “No.”
    “Hamburgers?”
    “No.”
    “Chicken? Turkey? Steaks?”
    The father propped his elbows on the table, clamped his hands together, smiled. “Crash, I guess we just feel that animals are God’s creatures and that it’s not for us to, uh, consume them.”
    I still had the first bite in my mouth. I figured whatever it was, it wasn’t one of God’s creatures. I pointed to my plate. “So