The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin by Josh Berk

Author:Josh Berk [Berk, Josh]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-375-89551-7
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2010-06-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It is very early. The gloom of night hangs like a curtain over the town. I am vaguely, inexplicably, afraid. In the dazed instant between sleep and wakefulness, I feel I truly know what it is like to die. For Pat there will never be any of this. No more mornings. No more nights. High school is supposed to be something we all look back on and laugh about. Or maybe we look back and cringe. But we are supposed to look back—that much I get. It’s not supposed to be all there is. …

Poof. He’s gone.

Trying to chase the ghosts from my brain, I trudge to the kitchen to stuff my stomach. There is a bowl of chicken wings in the fridge. I eat every bit and then proceed to lick the bottom of the bowl. This doesn’t make me feel better, so I fire up the computer.

Hello, world.

Online, the story has spread like a virus, reaching around the entire world. CNN, already interested in all things Chambers, gives Pat’s death third-highest billing. Among all the events on the whole planet, only a nuclear scare somewhere and a massive bloody train crash in India rank as more important.

Principal Kroener, who I suddenly feel very bad for, is quoted a hundred million times with the same line. “We will look into this very seriously,” he says.

Searching for more information, I find that TheTruthIsNot.com, a popular conspiracy page, has an article on the story. I had spent some time on their message board a while back, arguing passionately that the site itself is a government-run conspiracy. Man, did that get people mad. What TheTruthIsNot has to say this morning is this:

Another Republican Cover-up?

We are not heartless here at TheTruthIsNot. We are saddened whenever tragedy strikes, be it a village burned in Iraq or a death on a school field trip. We do not wish to make light of the death of Carbon High School student Patrick Chambers Jr. on his class trip to the (unfortunately named) Happy Memory Coal Mine.

We do, however, know the malodorous stench of foul play when we smell it.

Rumors are flying around Washington this morning that Pat Chambers Sr., the businessman under heavy fire for his involvement in the Laufman scandal, was about to reveal more information in the casino bribery and cover-up scheme. What kind of information? What did he know? What would people do to stop him? How high does this thing go? Can anybody say CIA hit man? POTUS?

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