Read Online The Stone Child by Dan Poblocki - Free Book Online Page A

wall. He grabbed the doorknob and pulled.
    Up the stairs to Eddie’s right, Harris stood in front of another open door. “This way,” Harris said.
    At the top of the stairs Eddie found a neatly kept kitchen. Harris dropped his book bag onto a chair at a table opposite the refrigerator. Green gingham curtains hung in the window above the sink. A bowl of fruit sat on the counter. A dishwasher was running quietly.
    “Where have you been, Harris? I was starting to worry.”A woman came through a doorway next to the refrigerator with a dripping tea bag in one hand and a steaming mug in the other. She looked about the same age as Eddie’s mother. She wore jeans, a tank top, and baubly green beads draped around her neck. When she noticed that Harris was not alone, she said, “Oh, I didn’t realize you brought home a friend.” Her smile was sweet. Her warm brown eyes matched the few dark strands that ran through her blond hair. “You boys are filthy,” she said with amusement. “What have you been doing?”
    “Eddie’s going to stay for dinner. Is that okay?” asked Harris, quickly changing the subject. He walked over to the sink and started to wash his hands.
    “That’s fine with me,” said Harris’s mother, shrugging. “But why don’t you call your parents and ask them if it’s okay. Do you like leftover meat loaf, Eddie?”
    Eddie nodded sheepishly. He hadn’t prepared himself to meet Harris’s mother, never mind have her invite him to stay for dinner. He felt dirty and intrusive, but when she held out her hand and introduced herself, he realized he was welcome.
    “You can call me Frances,” she said. “How was the first day, Harris? Who’d you get for homeroom this year?”
    “It was fine. I got Dunkleman this time.” Harris spun away from the sink and wiped his hands on his jeans, leaving wide wet marks over his pockets. “Come on, Eddie. Let’s go play video games. You can call your mom from my room.”
    “You finished your homework already?” said Frances.
    “First day of school. I only have a little bit tonight,” said Harris, disappearing around the corner into the hallway. “I’ll do it before bed, okay?”
    Eddie looked at Frances, who just smiled and waved, shooing him off to follow her son. “Boys,” she said with fake exasperation. “Go. Play. It’s nice to meet you, Eddie.”
    “You too,” said Eddie, following Harris around the corner.
    A few minutes later, Eddie was sitting on Harris’s bed, as Harris leaned over his computer’s keyboard. “Here,” said Harris, typing Nathaniel Olmstead’s name into a search engine Web site. Several items related to the author appeared in the search window.
Buy Nathaniel Olmstead books … 50% off! Are you an Olmsteady …? Click here!
Harris clicked on the last link, which appeared to be a listing from the archives of the
Gatesweed Gazette
. “Check this out.”
    On the screen an article appeared, dating from the time of the author’s disappearance. Eddie read the first part of it carefully. The article described how the town-wide search party had discovered the statue in the woods.
    “After I started getting into Nathaniel Olmstead’s books, I came across this article,” said Harris, scrolling the cursor to the bottom of the screen. A small box appeared where the article ended, showing a crudely drawn map of the NamelessWoods. The clearing, the statue, and the lake were specifically marked. “I used this map to find my way. I wanted to see if I could discover anything the search party might have missed.”
    “What’s that there?” said Eddie, leaning forward and pointing at an X that had been marked in the middle of the lake, in the same spot where the water had turned black.
    “That’s where the police found
evidence
.”
    “What sort of evidence?” said Eddie.
    Harris scrolled the cursor and read from the screen. “‘When the lake was dredged, police discovered a small metal box. The nature of its contents is being