Out of Nowhere Read Free

nudged up against it, then pressed into and through it. The chunk gave way with a loud crack and two fat halves thudded to the ground. Uncle Paul picked one up, replaced it on the splitter, and aimed the wedge again. This time the oak split into neat, three-sided pieces. He grabbed one in each hand and flung them onto the growing pile.
    “Where’s Mr. Plourde?” he asked.
    “He’s coming,” I said, trying to sound convinced. I had no idea whether Donnie would make an appearance. In fact, I pretty much doubted it. The last time I’d seen him—nine hours earlier, actually—he hadn’t looked like someone who’d be in any shape for manual labor in the morning.
    Lila Boutin’s big brother had fixed us up with a case of Bud Light, and a bunch of us had headed out to the football field. Some of the girls brought blankets, and we were lying in the middle of the dark field, looking up at the black sky and knocking back a few cold ones. It was one of those September nights—no bugs, not cold yet, with a few random shooting stars that hadn’t burned themselves out in August—when you could fool yourself into thinking maybe Maine
isn’t
the most dead-end, godforsaken state in the union. That was my mood when Donnie jumped up from his blanket. He shook himself like a horse covered in flies.
    “This is so lame!” he exclaimed. “What, are you people just gonna lie here?”
    “Sounds good to me,” I replied. In the darkness, Cherisse’s hands were straying into some fairly interesting places, and I was thinking this was about as far from lame as I could imagine.
    “I gotta
do
something,” Donnie said, more to himself than to any of us. I could see him move his feet restlessly. See his head tilt back as he finished off his beer.
    “Don’t step on me, bro,” Jake Farwell said, followed by a female squeal and “Ouch!”
    “What the hell, Donnie!” I heard Lila exclaim. “You just kicked Devon in the head!”
    “Sorry,” Donnie mumbled, stepping away from the bodies andblankets on the ground. “Whaddaya say, Tom-boy?” he added. “Wanna give me a ride?”
    “Nope,” I managed before Cherisse covered my mouth with hers. Donnie breathed out impatiently.
    “Gotta find my man Pepper. Who’s coming?” he said. Greg Pepper is this guy who sells weed and lives in probably the sketchiest part of the city. I started to tell Donnie to shut up and sit down and try to find the Big Dipper or Orion’s belt overhead, but that’s about when Cherisse found my belt, so I wasn’t saying a lot to Donnie. George Morin, who’s pretty much a stoner and also has a car, got up. “I’m with you, man,” he said, and Donnie slapped him five. Then the two of them walked off without another word to the rest of us.
    “ ’Bout time,” I heard Lila mutter. “That guy is so hyper.”
    “No hating on Plourde,” Jake said to her.
    “Why the frig not?” Devon snapped, sitting up. She had her hand on her just-kicked head. “The guy’s crazy. He’s always drunk or stoned, or trying to get drunk or stoned.”
    “That’s funny, coming from someone who’s out here drinking beer,” Jake replied.
    Devon shrugged. “I don’t know why you guys defend him,” she said. “He’s a loser.”
    There isn’t a whole lot that can distract me from the charms of Miss Cherisse Ouellette, but even the wounded Devon wasn’t allowed to run Donnie down in my presence. I shifted Cherisse off my chest and raised myself up on one elbow.
    “Hey, Devon, can I ask you something? What’s your problem with the word ‘fuck’? We all know you won’t
do
it, but can you not even
say
it?” Burst of laughter, even from the girls.
    “Hmm. ‘Frig.’ Aren’t those the first four letters in Devon’s other favorite word?” Jake said. I knew where he was going right off, but there was a pause as the rest of them scrolled through their mental spell-checks. Lila got it first.
    “Oh my God, that’s
so
mean, Jake!” She leaned over to slap Jake