Jonah Havensby Read Free Page A

reach. He wrapped himself up in a blanket and lay down on the hammock, staring out at the gently swaying long grass.
    He decided he needed some kind of plan. Was he going to live here? Just like this? He didn’t think so. He felt sure his father would have planned something different after this. Having this as a meeting place, or a hiding place, was one thing. To actually live in a cave would suck.
    As the sun went down on that first night, he took a backpack from the footlocker, the larger pack that was obviously meant for his dad. He tried to think of what he might need, and didn’t have a clue. He spent most of the remaining daylight hours sorting through the footlocker. Since he had nothing better to do, he made a wide circle of the items, grouping them appropriately - these were clothes, these were cans of food, these were items with which to cook and eat.
    In the end, he packed a change of clothes, the large water bottle, a flashlight, two cans of baked beans, one of the spoons and the hunting knife. He decided he would hike to the other two caves tomorrow where his father had also planted things ‘for safe keeping’ and see if the supplies there were any different.
    The next morning he had a breakfast of canned peaches, which he had never tasted before and, as it turns out, he really hated, but he didn’t have it in him to go hunting for more wood and wasn’t the least bit interested in trying another fire just yet.
    His hand was still tender from the burn, but thank goodness it wasn’t any worse than that. He left the empty can of peaches next to the empty can of beans from the night before, put on his coat and boots, and began to pack the items he selected into the large backpack. The last thing he did before he left the cave was put the silver chain around his neck and drop the green gem inside his sweater. He shook it to see if it would glow again. He only now realized it had gone out just after the explosion. Now it was the same stupid bauble with sharp edges that did nothing but make the world look green when you looked through it.
    The pack turned out to be heavy, but not an impossible burden, as he slung it over both shoulders and set out for the other two caves, each of which, he knew, were almost exactly half a mile apart. He remembered his father measuring the distance out with a handheld GPS the first few times they travelled to the other caves. Again, it never registered with him why his father might be measuring the distance. For Jonah, it was about the adventure of exploring and the responsibility of being the leader when his father let him hold the GPS. His father would ask him questions about which compass direction they were going and what the geography was nearby. The GPS changed colors – green, if a dense patch of woods was nearby, a streak of blue if a stream was close, things like that.
    After about a year, he and his father could find the other caves easily. His father had chosen the caves because they were higher up than the first, but he was evidently looking for places that had both a water source and a thicket of trees within walking distance.
    Jonah walked into the second cave and checked the footlocker there. It was situated next to a camping hammock, the same as the first. Here was only more of the same, though, so Jonah only added a can of beans and two cans of peaches to the pack. He didn’t like peaches, but they were food, and that seemed important. He also decided he’d take the brown sweater he found here as well. The backpack was definitely getting too full.
    Cave number three proved the same, except he liked the blue sweater he found more than the one he was wearing, so he traded it out and left the red one here in the locker. There were sneakers here, instead of boots, but he liked the warmth and traction the boots provided. He did find a bar of soap. For some reason, that just sounded like a practical thing to have, so he put that in the pack as well.
    He was just about