Read Online The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith - Free Book Online Page A

me.
    Then Larry said, “But the kids of Earth were like zombies under Marshmallow Jeff’s control, on account of all the marshmallows he’d give them. The Earth cabin’s still here, too. It’s on the other side of the creek from the mess hall, in the woods. After the incident that happened there that summer, they stopped keeping the vines knocked back around Earth, so unless you know it’s there, you don’t even notice it.”
    â€œSo, what happened at the Earth cabin?” Max asked.
    â€œI’m telling you, kid. Be patient.” Larry moistened his lips and burped a silent blast of vodka gas. “Pretty much as soon as the camp term started that summer, Marshmallow Jeff complained to Mrs. Nussbaum that one of the other planets was playing tricks on the Earth boys—trying to scare them. He said that his kids kept seeing two red eyes in the woods at night, like they were staring in at them through the screen on the cabin. Nobody likes to get stared at by red eyes at night, right? Anyway, it kept happening, night after night, and the eyes kept getting closer and closer and closer to the Earth cabin.”
    Larry lowered his voice and got a crazy look in his eyes when he said the part about the eyes getting closer. And I’ll be honest—I’d never heard stories like this before, so it was making me more than a little scared.
    Then something happened that made us all jump.
    We heard the fluttering buzz of a vibrating cell phone. Larry jerked his hand down to smother the spot in his cargo shorts where he’d hidden his phone, but it was too late. The thing may just as well have been an air-raid siren as far as the boys of Jupiter were concerned.
    â€œUh,” Larry said.
    Robin Sexton’s eyes flashed flames.
    â€œYou have a phone!” Robin said.
    â€œNo—I—uh—”
    In other circumstances, with other planets, I could easily imagine a bloody scene ending in Larry’s gruesome dismemberment. But clearly, Max, Cobie, and I didn’t care about Larry’s cell phone. Robin Sexton, on the other hand, began salivating and attempted to get to his feet.
    But Larry held out a warning hand and said, “Don’t even think about it, kid.”
    Robin chewed on his lower lip and sat back in the dirt.
    It was reasonable that counselors would be permitted to have such luxuries as cell phones and electricity and so on. I could only assume that most of them were more adept than Larry at keeping their secrets concealed.
    â€œAm I going to finish telling this story, or what?”
    â€œIf we had our phones, you could group text us,” Cobie Petersen offered.
    Larry sighed, and put his hands on his knees like he was going to get up and go to bed.
    â€œNo. I was just kidding, Larry,” Cobie apologized. “Please finish the story.”
    Larry pointed his spear-finger at Cobie. “You’re telling one, too.”
    â€œI promised, didn’t I?”
    So Larry continued, “One night there was a terrible storm. Everyone shut themselves up inside the cabins just trying to keep dry and warm, except for Marshmallow Jeff and the boys from Earth. They’d seen the red eyes in the woods again, right outside their cabin, and Marshmallow Jeff told his campers he’d give them all fistfuls of marshmallows if they would go out in the storm into the woods with him, so they could kick the living shit out of whoever was trying to scare them.”
    â€œWere you in Jupiter then, Larry?” Cobie Petersen asked.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œSix summers in Jupiter.” Cobie shook his head. “You must be very, very lonely.”
    â€œShut up. It’s not like I spend all year here, kid. I have a life,” Larry said.
    â€œDoing what, exactly?” Cobie asked.
    â€œJesus. Are you guys going to let me tell the story, or what?”
    I think we all wondered what Larry did when he wasn’t in