Read Online The Secret Life of Owen Skye by Alan Cumyn - Free Book Online

way up a steep, snow-covered slope to get to the tracks and the bridge.
    They stood at the edge looking across to the other side.
    â€œThere’s no sidewalk,” Leonard said.
    â€œOf course there’s no sidewalk!” Andy laughed. “It’s a train bridge.”
    â€œBut there’s no handrails either!” Owen said. It was just flat — two tracks on railway ties with steel girders underneath.
    â€œWhy would they put handrails?” Andy asked. “If a train jumps the tracks, you don’t think a handrail is going to keep it from falling off?”
    Leonard put his finger on the problem soon enough. “We aren’t
supposed
to go across this bridge!” he said. “It’s not a people bridge at all!”
    â€œIt isn’t very far,” Andy said in a low voice, looking at the snow on his boots. “It would only take a couple of minutes. Besides, there’s no other way across, unless we head another mile along the river to the highway.”
    â€œWhat do we do if a train comes?” Owen asked. He looked up and down the track anxiously.
    â€œWe either hurry up and go across, or we turn around and go back,” Andy said. “It isn’t that hard.”
    â€œBut if we got caught on the bridge — ” Leonard said, and his lip began to wobble.
    â€œThe only reason we’d get caught is if we panicked,” Andy said. “And we didn’t panic in the haunted house, did we? We fell in a little trouble but we got ourselves out. Anyway, do you see any trains?”
    They looked up and down the track. Owen could see for quite a distance in both directions, and there was no sign of trains.
    â€œMy foot would get caught,” Leonard said. “Halfway across. And then a train would come and I wouldn’t be able to get out of the way.”
    Andy said, “You just leave your boot in the track and run in your sock feet back to the safe part.”
    â€œI don’t want to lose my boot,” Leonard said.
    â€œIt wouldn’t happen,” Andy said. “It’s just going to take two minutes to go across and then it’ll be over.”
    â€œMaybe we should think about it some more,” Owen said.
    â€œOn the way home we’ll have to cross again,” Leonard said. “Look how windy it is.”
    It was true. The wind was screeching along the river, carrying snow from the surface in slow-motion waves.
    Andy said, “It’s two minutes! You
have
to go across this bridge, Leonard!”
    Andy was usually convincing but Owen knew something had happened to Leonard. He’d stood up to the ghost in the haunted house all those months ago. He wouldn’t do just anything that Andy said anymore.
    â€œYou didn’t go across the river on the ice,” Leonard said.
    â€œI tried, and that’s the important thing!”
    â€œThe important thing is do I want to cross this bridge just so I can get captured by aliens and put in an Earthling zoo? Maybe I just don’t!”
    At that moment Owen saw a train coming. It had somehow snuck up on them when they were arguing, and now was hurtling at them faster than they thought possible! The three of them scrambled down the bank and huddled against the chainlink fence, covering their ears and eyes, while the train roared past louder than a world war. Owen looked up once and saw a conductor leaning out of a window yelling at them, looking angrier than Mr. Schneider on a bad day. It was the longest train Owen had ever seen, and it took three lifetimes to go past.
    When everything was quiet again, Andy said, “I guess we could hike down to the highway and cross the river there.”
    It took most of the day. All the way along Owen thought about what would have happened if they hadn’t listened to Leonard. They would have got halfway across the bridge and then that train would have been on top of them. It was too big and moving too fast to stop