Lost Boys Read Free Page B

both hands on the wheel for a turn.
    Still, all the rest of the way into Frankfort he couldn’t get Stevie’s questions out of his mind. Nor could he forget his own answers. He had stopped DeAnne from teaching Stevie that God would always protect him from bad people, but then he had gone on and promised that he would give his life before any harm ever came to the children. But was that true? Did he have that kind of courage? He thought of parents in concentration camps who watched their children get killed before their eyes, and yet they could do nothing. And even if he tried, what good would Step be able to do against somebody bent on violence? Step had no skill in fighting, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t one of those things that you just know how to do. Any half-assed hoodlum would make short work of Step, and here he had kids who were looking to him for protection. I should study karate or something. Kung fu. Or buy a gun so that when Stevie is fourteen he can find it where it’s hidden and play around with it and end up killing himself or Robbie or some friend of his or something.
    No, thought Step. None of the above. I won’t do any of those things, because I’m a civilized man living in a civilized society, and if the barbarians ever knock on my door I’ll be helpless.
    They pulled into Frankfort and there was a Holiday Inn with a vacancy sign. Step took it as a good omen. Officially he didn’t believe in omens. But what the heck, it made him feel better to take it that way, and so he did.

2
M AGGOTS
    This is the house they moved into: The only cheap wood siding in a neighborhood of red brick. No basement, no garage, not even a roof over the carport. Brown latticework around the base of the house like the skirting around a mobile home. Blue carpet in the living room, which wasn’t going to look too good with their furniture, an old-fashioned green velvet love seat and overstuffed chair Step had bought from Deseret Industries when he was in college back at BYU. But it had four bedrooms, which meant one for Step and DeAnne, one for the boys, one for Betsy and the new baby when it came in July, and one for Step’s office, because they still hoped he could do some programming on the side and then they could go back to living the way they wanted to, and in a better place than this.
    In the meantime, the movers had piled the living room six feet high with more boxes than they could ever unpack and put away in a place this size, and they had a single weekend to get settled before work started for Step and school started for Stevie. Monday, the deadline, the drop-dead day. Nobody was looking forward to it with much joy, least of all Stevie.
    DeAnne was aware of Stevie’s anxiety all through the weekend of moving in and unpacking. Stevie mostly tended Robbie and Elizabeth, except when Step or DeAnne called for him to run some errand from one end of the house to the other. As always, Stevie was quiet and helpful—he took his responsibilities as the eldest child very seriously.
    Or maybe he just seemed serious, because he kept his feelings to himself until he had sorted them out, or until they had built up to a point where he couldn’t contain them. So DeAnne knew that it was a real worry for him when he came into the kitchen and stood there silently for a long time until she said, “Want to tell me something or am I just too pretty for words?” which was what she always said, only he didn’t smile, he just stood there a moment more and then he said, “Mom, can’t I just stay home for another couple of days?”
    â€œStevie, I know it’s scary, but you just need to plunge right in. You’ll make friends right away and everything’ll be fine.”
    â€œI didn’t make friends right away at my old school.”
    That was true enough—DeAnne remembered the consultations with Stevie’s kindergarten teacher. Stevie didn’t really