Hissers Read Free

white starbursts beneath them. Both boys stood on the pedals, mouths tight, knuckles white around their handlebars, pumping their feet to compensate for the road’s slight incline. Connor, in the lead, glanced back once to make sure his friend was still close behind. Seth was portly for a fourteen year old, and it wasn’t uncommon for Connor to have to stop and wait for the putz to catch up. He really didn’t want to lose his momentum on this hill; starting up again would be a bitch.
    When Connor crested the top of the hill he eased up on his speed. Seth fell in beside him, beads of sweat dotting his forehead, and they continued on. Neither boy spoke as they raced to their destination—-the only 7-Eleven in town. It was their summer ritual to come here, buy a couple of cans of Redbull and some hotdogs, nick some batteries by sticking them down their socks, and then go hang out in the fort in the woods looking at porno mags and playing with Seth’s PSP until the batteries in the external charger ran out.
    “You still alive?” Connor asked. The convenience store was close. “You look like you might pass out.”
    Seth was flushed and not amused. All summer riding up this hill and the boy was still overweight. Connor’s ribbing did not lighten his mood. “Man, eat the skid marks in my shorts.”
    “Depends what’s in them. What did you have for breakfast?”
    “Your mom’s crotch.”
    “Oh, yum. I’ll have two helpings, please.”
    The 7-Eleven on Draper Avenue used to be a mom and pop convenience store called The Draper Deli and Soda Mart. It had been owned by an old married couple, the Frenches, who died before Connor was born, back in ‘92 or something. Connor’s dad had told him you could get a fresh sandwich, can of Coke, the newspaper, bread and milk and maybe even a toy for about five bucks back then, which in those days was a steal.
    Said Mr. French would always ask when he, Connor’s dad, was gonna have kids and what he and the new wife were doing on Saturday because there was a community picnic at the park near the school, and they should come by. Connor’s dad always followed up this tired tale with some lame nostalgic lament like, “You don’t get that kind of neighbor these days. These days kids take guns to school and Starbucks runs the small business owner out of town.”
    All Connor ever replied was, “Why would you buy a newspaper when you can read it for free online?”
    They cut across the parking lot and leaned their bikes up against the ice machine beside the front entrance. The interior of the store was air conditioned and had that 7-Eleven smell—floor cleaner, stale coffee, hot dogs, and sweat. Jared Higgins was behind the counter. He was a senior at the high school, one of the stars of the wrestling team and the kind of guy who was allegedly always getting girls pregnant but never actually dated anyone. He was muscular enough to bring down a rhino with one arm but dumb enough that multisyllabic words made him go cross-eyed.
    His innate oblivion to anything that didn’t have tits or an Anheuser-Busch logo on it was one of the reasons Connor and Seth could steal the batteries so easily. If he did happen to catch them it wasn’t like a simple lie couldn’t convince the idiot that the batteries had just fallen into their socks.
    Neither Connor nor Seth were very friendly with Jared, but word traveled fast in their quaint town and even Connor’s mom knew that Jared was being held back as a senior this year. That made him the only twenty-year-old in the high school.
    And then it hit him, the knowledge that in just three days he and Seth would be walking the same halls as Jared. In just three days, come Monday morning, the summer would be officially over and they’d be starting on the path to adulthood. The thought filled him with absolute dread. It was worse than how he’d felt entering into the two-year junior high school. At least there you knew you only had to suffer as an