Read Online The Crossroads by Chris Grabenstein - Free Book Online Page B

evil eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?”
    The old man dropped his chain saw and clutched his chest. Tried to breathe. The saw’s razor-sharp blade chewed through the toe of his work boot.
    Mr. Mandica toppled sideways.
    Clint Eberhart laughed and vanished into the soft night air.

The next day, Zack and Zipper went out into the woods ringing the backyard to check out the stump.
    Judy said maintaining the memorial was even more important now that Mr. Mandica had died so close to the old tree. So Zack had a claw hammer looped through his belt and a pocketful of nails scratching against his thigh as he set off to make the repairs.
    â€œThere’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said to Zipper. “I don’t think the Wicked Witch will be back here today. Not on a Sunday.”
    Zack examined the stump. It was gigantic. At least ten feet across. The ground around it had heaved up some, but the rooted base was still intact. Zack saw the white cross and rusty bucket lying on the ground.
    â€œCome on. We’d better fix it.”
    While Zack hammered, he studied the depression Mr. Mandica’s body had made in the damp dirt when he died. It looked exactly like the indentation his mother had left in her hospital-bed mattress.
    Zack straightened the cross and pushed a new nail through an old hole near its top. Next he nailed in the bucket.
    â€œOkay. Where are the stupid flowers?”
    Zack looked around on the ground.
    â€œMake ready the way of the Lord!” cried a stern voice behind him.
    Zack spun around and saw an angry man in a sweltering black suit. The man was tall and pencil thin and wore a black hat the size and shape of a pizza pan. Some sleepy-eyed kids stood behind him in single-file lines. They looked miserable.
    â€œWhy dost thou undo what the Lord hath done?” the man shouted. He held a black book with colored ribbons streaming out from gold-edged pages. A Bible.
    The children behind the man looked weird. The boys all wore identical short-sleeve shirts. The girls had on dresses that swung out like bells. The boys had buzz cuts. The girls, pigtails. All their lips were tiny O’s—like they breathed only through their mouths or were posing to be Pilgrim candles for Thanksgiving.
    â€œHeed my words! Clear away this stump!”
    â€œHowdy, folks!” someone yelled from off to the right.
    Zack spied a boy about his own age dressed in bib overalls but with no shirt on underneath the shoulder straps. The boy was barefoot and held a slingshot aimed at the man in black. He let loose a small stone that whacked the skinny man in his shin.
    â€œGotcha!”
    Zipper wagged his tail. He liked this boy with the slingshot.
    The man in the pizza hat shook his fist. “Scallywag!”
    â€œSir, I think it’s time you and the kiddies headed back to camp. So make like a tree and leaf.”
    Zack smiled. Nodded at the boy.
    â€œGaldern Bible campers,” the boy said, shaking his head.
    â€œYeah.” Zack acted like he knew what the boy was talking about. He turned back to face the man in black.
    But he was gone. So were the children.
    â€œWhere’d they all go?”
    â€œBack to where they come from, I reckon.” The boy tucked his slingshot into the front flap of his overalls. “I’m Davy. Davy Wilcox.”
    â€œI’m Zack. Zack Jennings.”
    â€œPleased to meet ya. Where d’ya live?”
    â€œRight here.”
    â€œThe new house?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œSwell!”
    â€œYou live around here?”
    â€œSure do. Moved up from Kentucky a few years back.”
    That explained why he talked so funny.
    â€œWe’re right across the highway. See? On the farm over yonder.”
    Zack looked across the highway and saw patches of a brown field filled with dead cornstalks.
    â€œThat’s our field. We keep the cows out back.”
    â€œIn the barn?” Zack asked.
    â€œThat’s right. You