The Creek Read Free Page A

Mockingbird Lane, as you faced the cul-de-sac—the side Mac’s and Penny’s families lived on—before shooting off into the depths of the woods, where its banks grew increasingly steep and treacherous. A bunch of older boys had built a fort on this same location several years back, and it had been well known as a favorite place for make-out sessions. Rumor had it that Caleb Devlin had taken over the fort before being sent away.
    The original support beams were still there, stretched perilously between three pine trees, almost fifteen feet up, hanging over the edge of the creek. It was every mother’s nightmare. The appeal was undeniable.
    Penny stood there, looking at the beams high in the trees, wondering how much it would hurt if you fell from such a height. A lot, she decided.
    “We need lumber,” Benji Albright said. Benji, who had sandy hair, a freckled face, and a huge gap betweenhis front teeth, was a scrapper, the first to dive in, to break a tooth, to bloody a nose. Both he and Mac had been in Penny’s homeroom, and it had seemed like the year had been one long fistfight.
    “There’s some at the skeet range,” Mac said.
    “How do we get it?” Benji asked.
    “We steal it,” Mac said, like Benji was stupid.
    “I don’t know,” Benji said.
    “Well, I do, so shut up,” Mac said.
    Mac was good at this sort of thing. Good at knowing when to sneak into the firing range to steal skeets, and when there were vacant houses in the neighborhood to explore. Last summer he had netted a huge box of pink bathroom tiles that had been left behind in a basement when a family up the block moved out. Not that tiles were good for much, but it was a score in any case. Petty theft was a skill.
    Stealing aside, Penny was pretty sure that building a fort on the same spot as Caleb Devlin’s old fort was more than stupid, especially considering what she’d just heard at breakfast. It seemed like bad luck to her, like building on a haunted graveyard. Penny eyed the spot of the proposed fort warily. Dense limbs cast lacy shadows, and the air smelled green and mossy, with an undercurrent of decay from rotting wood. The groundseemed darker around the trees, and there was something else, something she was having a harder time putting her fìnger on. And then it struck her.
    There was nothing growing on the spot—no flowers, no wild ferns, not even the oniony sort of weed that grew everywhere in the dark, humid woods. Where were the birds? Why weren’t there any birds up in the trees? It didn’t make sense.
    Unless, she thought suddenly, maybe the ghosts of Caleb’s victims were still here, lurking around, killing plants and scaring away animals. Bad things didn’t go away easily, Penny knew.
    Penny was superstitious. She knocked on wood, always threw salt over her shoulder when it spilled, and never stepped on cracks. And other things, too. She never,
ever,
killed praying mantises, and she always carefully carried crickets outside when she found them in the house. She had learned these superstitions from her grandmother, Nana, who lived in Key West, Florida.
    “Penny,” Teddy said, tugging her hand anxiously. “Tell them.”
    Penny swallowed hard. “You guys, did you hear?”
    “Hear what?” Benji said.
    “Caleb’s back.”
    It was hot out, so hot that their skin was slick with little beads of sweat, but Penny’s words caused them to shiver where they stood.
    “What?” Oren Loew said, his voice a croak. Oren, who had just turned thirteen, was the oldest of the boys. The only Jewish kid on the block, and the most responsible, Oren was experiencing some mild embarrassment from his changing voice. Puberty had its tight grip on his throat, and his face was a rash of pimples.
    “Says who?” Mac demanded, starting to go red, his voice full of anger. He was in a foul temper, but then, the dentist could do that to a person. “And where’s my magnifying glass?”
    “I saw him myself,” Penny said in a solemn