The Creek Read Free Page B

voice.
    Penny was many things—an excellent shortstop, a good climber, a fair spitter, a girl—but she was not a liar.
    “But do you even know what he looks like?” Mac asked, not convinced.
    “I saw the tattoo. The skull tattoo on the back of his hand,” she said.
    That shut them all up. They stared at each other in silence.
    “Maybe it has something to do with his mom,”Oren said thoughtfully, his thick black curls catching bits of light, making them look blue. Oren was like this; he reasoned things out. He was the one who could be counted on to talk everyone down when they got crazy ideas. “I heard my mom on the phone saying that Mrs. Devlin was really sick.”
    “Caleb’s probably what? Seventeen now?” Benji asked.
    “He was a grade behind Toby,” Mac said. Toby was Mac’s older brother, who was off at college. “And he was sent away when he was thirteen.”
    Oren said, “Yeah, I remember. We were in Miss Simmons’s class.”
    Benji nodded. “Second grade.”
    It was little things like this that made Penny feel like she would never really fit in, these casual references to things in the past that seemed of great importance, that had become accepted history on the block. Like the time Benji had broken his leg in two places when he’d crashed his bike into a ravine, and the time Mac had rigged a remote-control model airplane with firecrackers so that it exploded right in the middle of the Bukvics’ annual barbecue. Penny knew these stories like she knew the stories of her own life. But they were borrowed memories.
    The Carsons had moved to Mockingbird Lane from Philadelphia three years ago, and while the kids counted her and Teddy as part of the pack, Penny felt that she had to listen harder, try harder, so that her being here could one day be effortless. It was a constant source of worry to her. Her mom was always telling her and Teddy to think for themselves. But Penny knew that it was more important to fit in, and that fitting in generally involved agreeing with everyone else. She didn’t want to end up like one of those kids at recess who always sat off to the side, never picked for a game of kickball.
    “Man,” Mac said with a low whistle. “Remember all those stories?”
    “Yeah! Nicky Kapoor told me his brother told him that Caleb showed him an old silver cigarette case. He said he’d stolen it off a sleeping bum,” Benji said.
    “I saw that case!” Penny said excitedly. “And I saw the skull tattoo on his hand!”
    Benji nodded sagely. “Sure sounds like him. But you know that cigarette case?”
    The kids waited expectantly, hearts pounding.
    Benji’s voice pitched low. “They say that case is full of pinky fingers from kids who tried to crosshim.” A beat, and then he added, “Caleb cut ‘em off with his hunting knife.”
    “That’s a steaming load of horse—” Mac started to say.
    “I’m not saying it’s true,” Benji shot back. “My point is, he must have been pretty bad.”
    “Oh, yeah, why’s that?”
    “‘Cause look at all the bad stuff
you
do, and you never got sent away!”
    “That’s ‘cause
I’m
too smart to get caught!” Mac shouted back in aggravation.
    “Pinky fingers does sound a little extreme,” Oren said. “But you know they say that he used to set traps here in the woods,” he added, looking around at the leaf-covered forest floor. His eyes clouded over. “We never did find Bozo.”
    “Bozo?” Penny asked.
    “Our dog. He was a dachshund. Caleb liked to steal people’s pets right out of their yards and kill them in the woods. I know he got Bozo,” Oren said with absolute conviction. “He wasn’t the kind of dog to run away.”
    “Bozo?” Mac snorted. “That dog probably killed itself because of its lame name. I bet it sat by the road all day and ran in front of a car when it saw its chance.”
    “You jerk!” Oren said, flinging himself at Mac.
    Benji wrestled him away, and Oren glared at Mac.
    “This is serious,” Penny said.