Runner by Carl Deuker

Author:Carl Deuker
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Over Christmas break, my dad would get up early every morning, shave, and leave before I even got out of my bed. He never said where he was going, and I never asked. Maybe he was going to Labor Ready, a place for men to get temporary jobs, or maybe he was drinking at the Sloop Tavern. Probably one day it was one place, and the next it was the other.

I slept for as long as I possibly could those mornings. Then I'd get up and hang out around the marina and along Market Street. On decent days, I'd walk to Great Harvest bakery. They give away big hunks of warm bread as samples. I'd get a piece, then sit down at one of the tables and—surrounded by the smell of baking bread and the warmth of the ovens—eat it as slowly as I possibly could. A couple of times I caught matinees at the Majestic Bay. Still, the days dragged.

On Christmas Eve, my dad found some hemlock branches that had been downed by a windstorm. He stuck them in a bucket filled with sand and stood them up in the corner of the cabin. "What do you think of our Christmas tree?" he said.

"It's great," I said, but I wished he'd done nothing.

Christmas morning I gave him a book on the exploration of Antarctica that I'd bought at Secret Garden bookstore. He read the title and then flipped the book over. "This is about Roald Amundsen." He skimmed the first paragraph, and then looked up. "Amundsen was a great man, Chance. A great explorer. Thank you very much."

He shoved a plastic bag toward me. I opened it; inside were gloves made of some high-tech fabric. "I got them at a bike shop," he said. "They're supposed to keep you warm but not make you sweaty."

"They're great, Dad," I said. "Thanks."

"I figured sometimes your hands must get cold when you run."

"They do. These will be great."

"All right, then. Not such a bad Christmas after all."

I ran at my regular time that afternoon, and then I went to the movies. I thought the theater would be empty, but it was nearly full. The movie was some comedy whose name I can't remember. Around me, people laughed like crazy. When the movie ended, I walked back to the marina. I thought I'd have the boat to myself, but my dad was waiting for me down in the cabin. "Let's go to dinner," he said.

We went to Charley's, a restaurant on the waterfront not too far from our pier. When the waiter came around, I ordered a hamburger. My dad shook his head. "You're getting a New York steak," he said. "And I'm getting the same."

"Anything to drink?" the waiter asked.

"Coke," I said.

"The same for me," my dad said, which surprised me.

I guess I must have looked nervous about the money he was spending, because he told me to stop worrying. "I've been working steady all week at Ballard Bicycles. Assembling bikes, that sort of thing.

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