The Creek Read Free

gossip, especially in small towns. They say bad things about other people. But that doesn’t always mean they’re true.You can’t believe everything you hear. Mrs. Devlin is very sick, and I’ll bet Caleb is just home to visit. I really don’t think his family needs to hear anything like this at such a time. So I don’t want to hear either of you spreading rumors about Caleb Devlin, all right?” She spoke too fast, her voice high, the way it always sounded when she was about to lose her temper.
    “But even Mrs. Bukvic knows that Caleb is bad!”
    Her mother sighed heavily. “Well, Mrs. Bukvic isn’t your mother, and I am. Got it?”
    Baby Sam, sitting in his high chair, kicked his feet, diverting their mother’s attention back to the task at hand.
    “All right, now. Let’s get your little brother fedbefore he wastes away to nothing,” her mother said in a determined voice.
    Penny thought that was pretty unlikely. Baby Sam resembled a plump pink piglet.
    “Come on, now, be a good baby,” her mother begged. Baby Sam opened his mouth a crack, and her mother quickly shoved a spoonful of peach baby food into his mouth.
    “Good baby!” Mrs. Carson clapped. She turned to Penny and Teddy and hissed, “Clap, you two. We have to encourage him.”
    Penny and Teddy rolled their eyes and clapped, and Baby Sam, amused, smiled broadly.
    “Good baby!” their mother said like a cheerleader.
    Baby Sam hiccuped once and then, incredibly, barfed down the front of his bib and clean duck-yellow snuggly suit, across the short tray table, and all over the front of their mother’s white T-shirt, leaving a kaleidoscope of peach baby food and something that was green and smelled like old peas.
    For a moment everything was quiet, and then Teddy broke the silence.
    “That,” he said in awe, “was really cool.”

CHAPTER 2
    P enny stepped out of the house. At that same exact moment, Amy Bukvic stepped out from her own front door across the street.
    Amy was fourteen, a year and a half older than Penny, and she was wearing a pair of tight jeans and a top that accentuated her burgeoning chest. Her auburn hair was arranged in a deliberately casual style that brushed across her face, making her look mysterious and grown-up.
    “Going to play with the boys?” she asked in a mocking voice.
    Penny didn’t know what to say. That was exactly what she was going to do.
    “Uh, yeah. Want to come? We’re gonna—”
    Amy held up a finger. “Wait, don’t tell me.” She pretended to think very hard. “You’re going to builda fort in the woods?”
    “Right,” Penny said awkwardly. “Want to come?”
    Acres of undeveloped woods ringed the houses of Mockingbird Lane on both sides, and it was here that the kids of the block built a tree fort every summer. Two years ago, Amy had helped with the fort herself. She had painted one of the walls pink, much to the boys’ collective dismay. Still, it had been fun.
    Amy laughed. “You couldn’t pay me to play with those dirtball boys in the woods. When are you gonna grow up, huh, Penny? You’re so stupid.”
    Penny felt tears prick at the back of her eyelids, felt the way her chest got tight. “I’m not stupid,” she said in a shaking voice.
    Amy yawned widely and adjusted a lacy bra strap, as if she was too bored to respond.
    “I’m not!” Penny whispered.
    “Get lost,” Amy said with casual cruelty.
    Penny turned and fled back into the house.
    The creek curled and twisted like a lazy snake through the woods, and like a snake, it was deadly in places, with high cliffs overlooking the thin thread of muddy brown water and sharp stones. Elsewhere, it opened into broad flats that were filled with dry,smooth stones, where the water swelled from bank to bank after a hard rain.
    This year, it had been decided that the fort would be built on a stretch of low embankment overlooking the creek less than a hundred yards from the back of Mac’s house. The creek wound behind the left side of