Saving Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Author:Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers

Eleven

It’s the next day on the school bus I tell David about the light. And even though it probably don’t mean spit, David Howard can work up one heck of a story with it, I know.

“Like a signal or something?” he asks, eager.

“Well, it could have been,” I say.

He’s cautious, though. “How do you know it wasn’t just somebody with a flashlight out jogging after dark?”

“It was movin’ too slow for that. And didn’t stay on more’n fifteen seconds.”

“Like somebody looking for something?” asks David.

“Maybe.”

“The other boot!” whispers David. “We found one, and now Judd wants to find the other.”

“David, that don’t make any sense at all!” I tell him. “Why would the killer leave a body out in plain sight, but go hide the shoes somewhere else?”

“The murder weapon, then,” says David. “Maybe Judd buried it somewhere along Middle Island Creek, and now that the police are looking for it, he wants to be sure it stays buried.”

I lean back against the seat and stare out the window, wondering if David could be right. The sheriff hasn’t found enough evidence to arrest Judd, but everybody from here to Wheeling is ready to string him up, it seems. Maybe they got good reason.

“Besides,” says David, lookin’ over at me, “if somebody’s looking for something, why would they go out at night?”

“That’s what I’m tellin’ you! We got a mystery on our hands. But it don’t mean it’s anything to do with Judd,” I say. Deep inside, though, I’m thinkin’ maybe it does.

What’s fun is sitting in Miss Talbot’s class, me and David, and having this secret. During math, we pass these notes back and forth.

How high off the ground was the light? writes David.

How in the world would I know that? I wonder. It was dark—couldn’t even tell where the ground was. But I write back, Three feet, maybe four.

Then it was a man holding the flashlight, answers David. If it had been a kid, it’d be more like two or three feet from the ground. I tell you, he can find clues in almost anything.

“Marty?” says Miss Talbot.

“Three,” I say, staring at the blackboard where she’s pointing. I don’t even know what the question is.

Somebody snickers.

“What I’m asking,” says the teacher, “is whether you would multiply or divide.”

“Multiply,” I tell her, making a guess.

“Correct,” she says, and I let out my breath real slow.

On the bus going home, David says he’ll ask his ma if he can stay at my house this weekend. That way we can take turns watching for the light. So when I get home with Dara Lynn, and Shiloh comes dancin’ and wigglin’ down the drive to meet us, I’m not surprised to hear the phone ringing soon as I step inside.

“Mom says it’s your turn to come to our house,” David tells me. “I can’t sleep over there till you come here.”

I ask Ma can I spend the night at David’s.

“I think it’s his turn to come here,” she says.

“He was just here!” I say.

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