The Sign of Seven Trilogy Read Free Page B

way.”
    â€œHe keeps them buried under a bunch of crap in the bathroom.”
    â€œLemme see.”
    â€œLater. With the beer.”
    They both looked over as Cal dragged his bike down the rough path. “Hey, jerkwad,” Fox greeted him.
    â€œHey, dickheads.”
    That said with the affection of brothers, they walked their bikes deeper into the trees, then off the narrow path.
    Once the bikes were deemed secure, supplies were untied and divvied up.
    â€œJesus, Hawkins, what’d your mom put in here?”
    â€œYou won’t complain when you’re eating it.” Cal’s arms were already protesting the weight as he scowled at Gage. “Why don’t you put your pack on, and give me a hand?”
    â€œBecause I’m carrying it.” But he flipped the top on the basket and after hooting at the Tupperware, shoved a couple of the containers into his pack. “Put something in yours, O’Dell, or it’ll take us all day just to get to Hester’s Pool.”
    â€œShit.” Fox pulled out a thermos, wedged it in his pack. “Light enough now, Sally?”
    â€œScrew you. I got the basket and my pack.”
    â€œI got the supplies from the market and my pack.” Fox pulled his prized possession from his bike. “You carry the boom box, Turner.”
    Gage shrugged, took the radio. “Then I pick the tunes.”
    â€œNo rap,” Cal and Fox said together, but Gage only grinned as he walked and tuned until he found some Run-DMC.
    With a lot of bitching and moaning, they started the hike.
    The leaves, thick and green, cut the sun’s glare and summer heat. Through the thick poplars and towering oaks, slices and dabs of milky blue sky peeked. They aimed for the wind of the creek while the rapper and Aero-smith urged them to walk this way.
    â€œGage has a Penthouse ,” Fox announced. “The skin magazine, numbnut,” he said at Cal’s blank stare.
    â€œUh-uh.”
    â€œUh-huh. Come on, Turner, break it out.”
    â€œNot until we’re camped and pop the beer.”
    â€œBeer!” Instinctively, Cal sent a look over his shoulder, just in case his mother had magically appeared. “You got beer?”
    â€œThree cans of suds,” Gage confirmed, strutting. “Smokes, too.”
    â€œIs this far-out or what?” Fox gave Cal a punch in the arm. “It’s the best birthday ever.”
    â€œEver,” Cal agreed, secretly terrified. Beer, cigarettes, and pictures of naked women. If his mother ever found out, he’d be grounded until he was thirty. That didn’t even count the fact he’d lied. Or that he was hiking his way through Hawkins Wood to camp out at the expressly forbidden Pagan Stone.
    He’d be grounded until he died of old age.
    â€œStop worrying.” Gage shifted his pack from one arm to the other, with a wicked glint of what-the-hell in his eyes. “It’s all cool.”
    â€œI’m not worried.” Still, Cal jolted when a fat jay zoomed out of the trees and let out an irritated call.

Two
    H ESTER’S POOL WAS ALSO FORBIDDEN IN CAL’S world, which was only one of the reasons it was irresistible.
    The scoop of brown water, fed by the winding Antietam Creek and hidden in the thick woods, was supposed to be haunted by some weird Pilgrim girl who’d drowned in it way back whenever.
    He’d heard his mother talk about a boy who’d drowned there when she’d been a kid, which in Mom Logic was the number one reason Cal was never allowed to swim there. The kid’s ghost was supposed to be there, too, lurking under the water, just waiting to grab another kid’s ankle and drag him down to the bottom so he’d have somebody to hang out with.
    Cal had swum there twice that summer, giddy with fear and excitement. And both times he’d sworn he’d felt bony fingers brush over his ankle.
    A dense army of cattails trooped along the edges, and