Deadwood by Kell Andrews

Author:Kell Andrews
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Deadwood
ISBN: 9781939392718
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press
Published: 2014-10-16T21:00:00+00:00

22

The Sentence

Being a seventh-grade ranger had drawbacks. The whole town teetered on the whim of some evil curseworker, but Martin and Hannah had to sit in school all day like good little schoolchildren.

Martin couldn’t even talk to Hannah alone. That Junior JET thing managed to ruin not just the four hours a week that he spent there, but every other free moment during the school day. Libby flagged him down in the hallway. She perched on the edge of his desk in social studies. She plopped down next to him in the lunchroom—always with Waverly in tow.

He tried to ditch Libby, but answering in monosyllables didn’t work. He tried snarky comebacks, but she thought he was hilarious. At least Hannah laughed at his jokes, too, so it wasn’t a total waste. She wasn’t much like Gord or Zach, but she was cool.

But on Wednesday Hannah had soccer practice, and Martin was sure she wouldn’t skip it for anything, not even the tree. He ran out to the Spirit Tree by himself, probably his best mile pace ever, but it wasn’t the same. When he got to the top of the hill, he touched the bark with his hand and spoke aloud. “O mighty tree.”

Nothing. Martin didn’t have his iPod to tune into messages, and more importantly, he didn’t have Hannah. When she was beside him, the air crackled with electricity—the tree hummed on a frequency so strong he could almost hear it. But when she wasn’t there, it felt like just another ordinary tree—an old, battle-scarred tree ready to fall down in the slightest breeze.

On Thursday Hannah told him to meet at her locker after school instead of the west exit. He couldn’t wait to get back to work, and he couldn’t help being pleased that now she didn’t mind being seen with him in front of everyone. At least Martin had that.

When they got to Aunt Michelle’s house, a big-headed man leaned against a massive SUV parked in the stamped-concrete driveway. He balanced a clipboard against the beginning of a paunch, flexing meaty biceps as he wrote. Martin didn’t like the look of him, and not just because he stood in the way of their entry.

“Oh great,” Hannah said, the corners of her mouth tightening.

“You know that guy?” It figured.

“It’s A.J.’s boss, Jake Laughlin. I asked him to take a look at the tree, remember? Kind of a jerk, but if he knows his trees, maybe he can help.”

“I’d be surprised if he knew his ABCs.”

“Well, he says he’s a tree surgeon. Anyway, the more we know about how to heal the tree, the better. Plus, he’s one of the football coaches and he used to play, so he probably knows the history of the Spirit Tree ceremony. And now’s as good a time as any to ask him,” she said, then called out, in a sunny voice that seemed to convey delighted surprise, “Mr. Laughlin! What are you doing here?”

He crunched a mint between his teeth and said, “Hi there, uh, little Vaughan.

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