Rich Shapero Read Online Free Page B

rules may be nonsense. But you better use your head. Even great
explorers make fatal mistakes."
    Robbie nodded. He remembered Shivers and
their headlong descent.
    "What are the Big Two?" Dad
asked.
    "Don't eat anything except
blueberries, and if you see a moose, don't stay in the open. Get behind a
tree."
    "Right. And when you leave your
backyard, there's a third. Don't get lost. There are things you have to
do—"
    "Like marking the way."
    "Exactly. Make sure you always know
where you are. If you get excited about going this direction or that—before you
do, stop and look around. Which way did you come from? How will you find your
way back? What will stick in your memory if you get confused? That's your job, no one else's. Whether you're with a friend or alone." He gave Robbie
a searching look. "Got it?"
    "Yep."
    "You never know," Dad laughed.
"You might want to come home."
    Robbie grinned and settled back, and Dad
began to read.

3
    I t rained for a
week. Robbie was stuck inside with Mom, or with Trudy when Mom was gone. Through
the back window, he watched the forest. Had Shivers claimed it? No, the trees
weren't bothered by the damp and the fog. They grew quickly. Wherever branch
ends met sky, there were sprays of leaves. Every day new bursts of green
appeared on the Hill, till the aspen tops swayed beneath resplendent crowns. It
was all happening without them.
    Fristeen was never far from his thoughts.
He fogged the glass with his breath and drew her running: a stick figure in the
shrubs. And then she was there on the deck outside, waiting. It was nothing but
wishing—just fog and mist. So he rubbed her away and started again. It all
seemed impossible after what Mom had said.
    When it was dark, he lay down, hoping for
sun the next day. And when he got up, it was still raining and his vigil
continued.
    "Jim's coming over to play," Mom
said one morning. "You like him."
    Robbie nodded.
    He met Jim in kindergarten, but they
weren't really friends. Mom liked Jim's mom because she was smart and taught at
the University. She brought some books for Mom, and the two women talked in the
kitchen. Jim stood in the living room, checking things out.
    He was holding something over his heart. It
was shiny and red—a plastic car. He sat down on the floor and looked this way
and that—the coast seemed clear. He bunched himself up, made a grumbling sound
and sprang forward, driving his car around a chair.
    Robbie stood and watched. Jim had an
imagination, but it wasn't anything like his.
    The car circled the sofa. Robbie followed
along. Jim jumped on the cushions and drove over the top. Suddenly, from his
throat came a gargling and crackling, and he raised his arm terribly and
brought it down. His arm was a chain saw. It cut the sofa in two. He drove the
car down the canyon, back onto the floor.
    "I've been in the forest," Robbie
said over the noise.
    The car careened past him and circled the
cordwood.
    Robbie pointed through the window. "To
the top of the Hill."
    Jim nodded excitedly and the grumbling
mounted.
    "If it ever stops raining—"
    "Watch me," Jim shouted. He drove
his car up the window and along the spine of the Hill.
    Robbie frowned. Mom was wrong—he didn't
like Jim. And he was upset with himself. The forest was a secret. Jim descended
the glass and zoomed toward the stove. Robbie turned from the race and headed
for his room. The forest, he thought, belongs to me and Fristeen.
    That evening, he was with her. "Sweet
dreams," Dad said when he kissed him goodnight, and the place he drifted
into when the light switched off couldn't have been sweeter. No rain, no
Shivers, no Jim and no rules. Just a woodland wrung with yearning and Robbie in
it, gazing up. Fristeen— Fristeen filled the sky, her smile like the sun, and
no matter how much he drank of it, the warmth still poured down. Bedtime would
never darken the spirit again. This new light had such energy that it could
burn forever.
    ***
    He woke the next morning feeling