Crossbow by Dayle Gaetz

Author:Dayle Gaetz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2007-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

chapter nine

This science report would be a snap, I thought as I walked home from the bus stop. Thanks to Amanda and Tyler, I’d get a good mark and make my mother proud. All I had to do was interview Paul Edwards, the forester who used to be friends with my father. That was Amanda’s idea. She said it was important to do research from all different sources and an interview with an expert was the best research tool.

So, okay, I could handle that. Not a problem. I made a mental note to phone him the next day, right after school. I’d make an appointment to meet him and ask my questions. I thought about phoning him as soon as I got home, but the sun was shining and I couldn’t wait to get out to the woods.

At home I dropped my schoolbooks near the door, grabbed a snack and clomped down to the basement. I found my father’s hockey bag and dumped all his stuff out. It smelled of sweat. It smelled like my father. I held my breath and stuffed his hockey junk into the sack Forrest gave me. Then I put the crossbow and arrows into the hockey bag and laid Woody on top. I rounded up a hammer and some nails, and then I set off.

I walked quickly along the paved streets, glancing this way and that, hoping no one would notice me. Big surprise, no one did. Sometimes I felt like the invisible kid, as if I could walk right into people’s houses and no one would see me. Did I blend into the background like a chameleon or did everyone look the other way because they didn’t want to see me?

I followed the logging road up and around the first bend. On both sides of the narrow dirt road evergreen trees grew tall and strong. It looked as if the forest went on forever. But I knew better. I ducked off the road and followed a path that cut through the trees. Minutes later I stepped into a clearing that looked like a war zone. As far as I could see, not one tree was still standing. Hundreds of dead trees lay scattered like giant matchsticks tossed on the ground. They crisscrossed over one another and made walking impossible.

Ask a big logging company and they’ll tell you clear-cutting is the only way to go. Mow down everything in sight, take the biggest and best trees, and leave the rest lying where they are. Eventually the forest will renew itself. In a hundred years, who’s going to know the difference? It’s nature’s way. That’s what they say. But nature doesn’t use harvesters, skidders and loaders to destroy a forest. Nature never built roads.

No one but me ever came up here, not even so much as a bird or a squirrel. Why would they? The place was as lifeless as the moon.

I set Woody on a tree stump. Maybe I was wrong, but I was sure

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