Read Online Hall of Small Mammals by Thomas Pierce - Free Book Online Page B

but Tierney has a brother named Herbie who’s an addict. Flynn has tried to help Herbie at the center, but Herbie doesn’t want to be helped. That’s how it is with some people. Flynn considers mentioning this now, as a way of creating a bond, but decides against it.
    â€œIt would mean so much to my son,” Flynn says.
    â€œSure, okay.”
    â€œOkay?” Flynn didn’t expect it to be so easy.
    â€œDone,” he says, and pretends to sign an invisible piece of paper suspended in the air between them. “The Grasshopper district office is in Charlotte. You can go there and fill out the paperwork, pay up for camp. I’ll take care of the rest.” He stands and smoothes the wrinkles from his suit pants.
    â€œThank you,” Flynn says.
    â€œGlad I could help. Now I’m afraid I need to . . .” His voice trails off as he motions vaguely at his empty desk.
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    Father and son rise early to depart on a Saturday morning, shafts of sunlight through a rising fog, the birds tweeting in the sycamore tree on the front lawn, its bark hanging like strips of beef jerky. You couldn’t ask for a more suitable morning, Flynn thinks.
    His wife comes outside in her bathrobe. “Couldn’t we just go to the beach?” she asks Flynn, a little upset because after threeyears without even using a sick day, Flynn is taking an entire week off from work, and he’s not using it to take his whole family on vacation. Instead he’s only taking his son to some mysterious camp in the woods. “Are you sure this is what he needs? He won’t know any of those kids.”
    â€œThis will be good for him,” Flynn assures her. “Kids make friends fast.”
    When Ryan comes outside with a bowl of cereal, milk dripping down his chin, she gives him a cell phone. “Pay as you go,” she explains to Flynn. “I’ll feel better.” To Ryan, she says, “So you can call me if you want.”
    The car is packed with sleeping bags, a tent, an electric lantern with the price-tag sticker still on it, and all the other equipment necessary for two human animals to live comfortably in the woods for five nights. Once they’re on the road, the boy is the navigator and is responsible for tracking their progress, his index finger across the atlas, and for calling out each step from the printed directions.
    â€œGrasshopper Pledge,” Flynn quizzes him. “Go.”
    â€œThere’s a way,” the boy says glumly, “around every wall.”
    â€œThe beads you can earn and their colors.”
    â€œBeads of Truth are the red ones. Beads of Mercy are the white ones.”
    â€œAnd the third?”
    The boy shrugs.
    â€œThey’re black . . .”
    â€œOh,” Ryan says. “Beads of Skill.”
    â€œAnd how many beads does it take to move up a level?”
    â€œSix beads.”
    â€œExactly,” Flynn says. “And you’ll have them in no time at all. Last question. The salute.”
    Ryan points to his heart with his index finger, and then Flynn does the same.
    â€œAren’t you excited?”
    The boy says he’s not sure if he’s excited. His brown shaggy mop—he hates haircuts—makes his small, narrow face seem even smaller. “What if it, like, rains?”
    â€œThat’s what the tent is for. We’re sharing a tent. That will be fun, right?”
    The boy gives him an uncertain look. They drive into the mountains and then down a long road with thick woods the color of katydids and khaki: muted greens and browns. Ryan directs Flynn onto a paved road that turns to gravel, the rocks popping under the tires. Then the gravel road becomes a dirt one, a volcanic cloud of dust behind them in the rearview mirror.
    Up ahead, rough beams form an arch over the road. The camp’s entrance.
    â€œYou should probably put on your uniform now,”