Unwritten Books 2 - Fathom Five Read Free

banged around them. Benson tossed to Peter. Peter threw the ball back, but Joe knocked it down and motioned Peter back to the centre.
    “Look,” said Joe as he tossed the ball past Peter, “you could do a lot worse, you know.” He caught Benson’s pass lightly. “So she’s a little short, but you could call her fun-sized — whoa!” He scrambled back as Peter lunged for him.
    “Good defence, Peter!” the coach called. “Don’t take a foul, though!”
    Joe covered the ball, twisted, and shot past Peter. Then he held up his hands for forgiveness. “Seriously, you two have been joined at the hip for years.”
    Benson laughed. “Yeah, so why not dance? She knows how, you know. She took step-dancing classes.”
    “Yeah,” Joe chuckled. “We never let her hear the end of it. Well, we did, but not for a long time.”
    Peter glared. “She doesn’t want to go.”
    “Did you ask her?” asked Joe.
    Peter kept a mutinous silence.
    Benson laughed. “He reads her mind, he knows her so well.”
    “Leave me alone!” Peter snapped. “It’s my life, okay?”
    “That’s big city talk, Pete. Here in Clarksbury, it’s everybody’s life.” Joe grinned shamelessly.
    Benson grabbed the ball and stepped closer to Peter, his expression serious for once. “You know, the only reason you two are being teased is because you’re both so totally blind. Do you know your freethrow average drops twenty percent whenever she’s around?”
    “It does not!” Peter yelled. Then he faltered. “Twenty percent?”
    “Not twenty, exactly,” Joe said, closing in behind him. “But you did fall over that first day she called to you from the stands.”
    “Something tripped me!”
    Benson snorted. “Yeah. Your feet.”
    Joe stepped around Peter and stood beside Benson. “Okay, so you say you don’t think of Rosemary as more than just a friend? Prove it! Repeat after me: Rosemary and I are just friends.”
    Peter rolled his eyes. “Rosemary and I are just friends.”
    “Rosemary and I have always been just friends,” added Benson.
    “Rosemary and I have always been just friends.”
    Joe’s grin was a challenge. “I have absolutely no interest in Rosemary being anything more than just my friend.”
    “I have no, I have absolutely ....” The words dried in Peter’s throat. Joe’s and Benson’s grins widened.
    Joe slapped the basketball into Peter’s chest. “Ask her out, you idiot. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
    “Well ....” Benson clapped Peter’s shoulder. “She could rip out your still-beating heart and crush it under her heel as she walks away.”
    Joe shrugged. “Yeah, but at least then he’d know.”
    A sharp whistle cut across the gym. “Okay, boys,” shouted the coach, “we’re done here. Good practice! Hit the showers!”
    Joe and Benson jogged to the change rooms, leaving Peter standing in the centre of the emptying gymnasium, thoughtfully bouncing the basketball.
***
    “I’m home!” Peter tossed his coat into the closet. Then he remembered. He stood in the front foyer, listening, but the house said nothing.
    He sighed and stepped into the kitchen. He saw the light blinking on the answering machine and he pressed the playback button.
    Beep! “Peter, it’s Michael. Listen, it looks like they’re going to need me to stay another week here in Chicago. Sorry about your birthday — I’ll make it up to you when I get home. You, uh, have the number of my hotel, so call if you need anything. You know where my bankcard is. Sorry again, Pete. Love.”
    The machine clicked off. Peter stared at it a long moment. Then he turned. His eyes fell on his battered school bag: a gift from his uncle for the start of school year, presented fully stocked with school supplies along with a note the morning after his uncle had left for New York.
    Peter kicked it down the hall. It sailed into the front door with a satisfying explosion of pens, pencils, and paper.
    The house made no sound, not even the