Read Online The Miracle Stealer by Neil Connelly - Free Book Online

like that.”
    Even though the road twists and curves like crazy, Jeff rested his palms loosely on the steering wheel. I saw that his fingernails were trimmed neat and tight. All during high school, he’d had a bad habit of biting at them when he was nervous.
    Jeff honked twice and waved as we neared three backpackers walking on the side of the road. I guess he was assuming he knew them. But as we passed, they turned their heads and we saw they were strangers. I wondered why they were in Paradise, on foot.
    â€œSo what happened to all your hair?” I asked. “You lose a bet or something?”
    He ran a hand over his crew cut. “Coach talked a few of us into an off-season tournament in May. We buzzed our heads to show solidarity, or something like that. It’s comfortable for the summer, but come fall I’m going to let it grow out again.”
    â€œYou should keep it,” I said. “It looks nice.” Then I wished I hadn’t said something that might sound like a come-on. It was just strange, because Jeff had always been funny about his hair, keeping it long to cover a cauliflower ear he got from all those beatings on the wrestling mat. Now there it was, bumpy and exposed for all the world to see.
    â€œStill running?” he asked.
    â€œAbout every day,” I answered. “Penn State’s got a good gym, I guess.”
    He smirked. “About six. And they’re crazy nice. Even the crappiest one is better than Paradise High’s workout room. It’s funny, though. I snuck in with the football team the other morning, and it was good to get back to those beat-up free weights. Maybe we just like things that are familiar, you know?”
    â€œMaybe so,” I said distractedly. Other than track, high school wasn’t something I missed a whole lot.
    â€œYou still heading for Lock Haven come August?”
    â€œThat’s the plan,” I said, but it came out without energy or enthusiasm. I rolled my window down and let the air push against my face. It was good to see Jeff, but our conversation felt forced and awkward. It seemed like both of us were searching for questions just to keep the silence from filling the van.
    What I wanted was to tell Jeff I was doing great, that my decision to defer my track scholarship for a year had been the absolute right one, no questions asked. I wanted to say that now I felt like Daniel was safe and when the fall rolled around I could leave for Lock Haven and get on with a life of my own. All this, of course, would have been a lie. “Jeff,” I said without thinking, “I need to talk.”
    Jeff nodded and turned into the dirt parking lot of Amazing Animals, a roadside zoo that housed a dozen lame exhibits—an obese porcupine, anxious prairie dogs, a stuffed bison with a missing horn. After fallen pine trees smashed through a retaining wall during the ice storm, Samson the blind bear and a puma had escaped. The puma got hit by a snowplow over on Highway 71, but Samson disappeared forever in that ice storm, like my father. Now and then you’d hear a story about somebody spotting the bear, but he had surely died of starvation long ago.
    â€œKeep driving,” I said. “You shouldn’t keep your dad waiting.”
    Jeff shut off the engine. “I heard about Daniel,” he said, staring straight through the windshield. “I should’ve called you.”
    â€œWell,” I said. “It’s a weird deal.”
    â€œI didn’t know if you’d want me to call.”
    I understood how he felt, but didn’t know what to say back. “So what did you hear?”
    â€œFor starters, that Daniel walked across the lake last Saturday night when the Abernathys called.”
    â€œYou got to be shitting me.”
    â€œNope,” Jeff said. “I also heard that Mrs. Abernathy’s baby was born dead. Daniel prayed and brought it back to life.”
    I thought of Daniel’s