Lost at Khe Sanh by Steve Watkins

Author:Steve Watkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2015-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

Greg stayed over at my house that night. He fell asleep pretty much right away once Dad brought us home and Greg dragged out his usual sleeping bag from under my bed. I was wide-awake, though, my brain spinning with all the stuff that had happened that day.

Of course I kept thinking about The Wall and finding out Z’s real name, plus when he went missing in Vietnam, and where anybody last saw him, or sort of where, anyway. They had it narrowed down to the province, so at least we had that to go on. All kinds of other things, too: his rank and his hometown. Maybe tomorrow we could try to get in touch with anybody who knew him. Maybe he had a wife and kids. Maybe check out a Vietnam veterans’ website. There were probably a bunch of those, where guys stayed in touch with one another, and where they posted stuff about guys who didn’t make it back from the war. There were all sorts of possibilities.

I felt kind of bad that I had gone out to the concert when probably I should have stayed home and followed up on all these new leads. And with the clock ticking on how long we had to solve Z’s mystery for him, what had I been thinking? Of course I should have stayed home. Just one more thing to feel guilty about, I guess.

Plus, not inviting Julie to go with Greg and me. That wasn’t exactly the nicest thing, either. And I couldn’t quite figure out why it made me feel so weird when Julie danced with Quinn. I mean, it wasn’t like I wanted to dance with her. But that didn’t mean I wanted Quinn to. I sighed.

And then there was that big jerk Belman. I wished I knew what to do about him. It seemed like every time I turned around, there he was making life difficult for us.

I was just stewing over all this stuff, unable to turn my thoughts off, when a sort of shadow appeared at the end of my bed. That’s the best way I can describe it.

“You’re looking kind of down there, son,” a voice said from that direction. “Been quite a day, huh?”

Z was back! I was already sitting up on my bed. “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, yes, sir.”

He laughed. “I’m not an officer,” he said. “Just a sergeant. At least according to that big headstone you took me to today. The Wall. You don’t call me ‘sir.’ Just a ‘Yes, Sergeant’ will do.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” I said.

“So look,” he said. “I appreciate all you kids have done for me. I’m still putting it all together, what we found out today, but I just want you to know. You all have been a big help. I’m glad you went out tonight and had you some fun. Don’t feel bad about that. You deserved it. Even if it didn’t end up so great.”

I didn’t know what to say. It was almost as if Z — Sergeant Miller — had been reading my mind or something.

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