Read Online A Week in the Woods by Andrew Clements - Free Book Online

panic, and he turned and ran up the creek-bed along the old, dim trail. The dog joined in behind and kept up with him. He ran blindly, without intention, in fear such as he had never known in his life.
    The end of the second story was not quite as gruesome as the first one had been, but when he finished it, Mark had had enough of Jack London for the night.
    He was done reading, so that meant it was time to turn out the light again. Mark began an argument with himself. One part of him argued that maybe it would be all right to leave it on. After all, if he was really scared, he wouldn’t be out here in the barn all alone, would he? But the other part of his mind said that the deal about tonight was simple: no lights. Tonight was about not being afraid of anything, including the dark—especially the dark.
    Mark turned off the lantern. The wind was blowing much harder now, and in spite of the roof and walls, a strong draft of cold air rolled along the floor of the barn. Turning over onto his back, he scooched down farther into his bag. It was the kind of sleeping bag with a hood built into it, so he pulled on the drawstringuntil only his face and nose were left in the narrowed opening.
    Mark felt blind. He had been staring at a white page under a bright light, so it took almost five minutes before he began to recover some night vision. Even then, there wasn’t much to see. The floodlights from the house were dimmed by the grime on the small square windowpanes above the double doors, and the light was now clouded even more by the thickening snow. Mark could see the outline of the rope swing about ten feet away, see it stretch up and lose itself in the darkness far above him. He could see the outlines of the posts on either side of the center space, and overhead he could see some of the beams and the front edges of the north and south haylofts. But most of the barn was hidden in deep shadow or complete darkness.
    Mark tried keeping his eyes shut. The noise of the wind was muffled by the sleeping bag. But almost immediately images from TV shows and movies came pouring into his thought. They seemed to have their own light, and he saw each so clearly. People with guns. Insane killers. Crashes and fires. Not to mention things like aliens and snakes and spiders. Awful stuff. Mark opened his eyes again, but that didn’t stop the image flow. Shutting it off took him a while. It wasn’t like turning off a faucet. It was more like mopping up a big spill when it’s spreading across a tabletop. It tooksome work, but Mark made himself think about other things, look for other pictures.
    With his eyes open, he focused on the plumes of water vapor that rose into the dim light every time he exhaled into the cold air. It was a little like lying back on a sunny afternoon and looking up at drifting clouds.
    Mark began sifting through his life. He reached back as far as he could, looking for his very first memory. And he found it.
    It was a hot afternoon in Santa Fe when he was less than two years old. He was wearing a pair of bright yellow overalls. When his mom wasn’t looking, he pushed the kitchen door open and toddled out into the back courtyard and started along the hard clay path that wound toward the pool and the covered patio. Then he tripped and fell forward onto his hands and knees. The red clay was hot from the desert sun. The searing heat burned his hands and knees, and he began to scream. His mom rushed out of the house and scooped him up. At the kitchen sink she ran cool water over his hands, then hugged and rocked him until he stopped crying. Then the little boy looked at the bright red marks on the knees of his yellow overalls, burst into tears, and had to be comforted all over again.
    Lying there in the dark on the drafty floor of the barn, Mark wondered why that was his earliest memory. Was it the pain from the burning hot path? Was itthe colors, the red clay and the bright yellow of his overalls? Or was