A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest by Charlie J. Stephens

Author:Charlie J. Stephens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Torrey House Press

Two-Rivers is a boy in my class who lives five blocks away from school. He says he has a pet squirrel and asks if I want to come over and meet it—that we could go that afternoon.

At Two-Rivers’ house, there are lots of crooked steps to climb up to get to the front door. After we climb the steps, we are in a tree house that has thick, brown rental carpet like ours, and the heater cranked up. His mom pours us orange juice and says she doesn’t know where the squirrel is right now, that it hasn’t come out all afternoon.

Two-Rivers gets a can of nuts and shakes it, makes a tchhh-tchhh sound with his lips, and points to the top of the curtains, where on a wooden rod sits the squirrel, bushy tail twitching.

“See,” he says, “Told ya.’”

“What’s his name?” I ask, and Two-Rivers gives me a funny look.

“Just Squirrel,” he says.

Squirrel jumps from one curtain rod to another one, hungry for the nuts. It jumps on to the back of the couch where Two-Rivers has made a trail of treats leading to him. It likes walnuts best. He puts a nut on his shoulder and the squirrel walks up his arm to get there, sniffs in his ear.

“You don’t need to impress people with a pet squirrel to have friends,” his mom says, standing in the doorway and watching him.

Two-Rivers pretends he doesn’t hear her, and she sighs and goes back to the kitchen, rubbing her forehead like Mom does. When I say I have to go, he asks if he can come to my house the next day, that he can’t bring Squirrel, but we could have fun anyways. And if not the next day maybe the day after that, or on the weekend, or anytime really. He has no way of knowing that I don’t let anyone come to my house, don’t want anyone to get that close, whether or not there is a boyfriend around, but especially not then. Even Toby has to wait for me outside, even when it’s raining.

I climb back down his stairs without knowing how to explain this to Two-Rivers, this boy with so much hungry need on his face. At school, he starts looking sad around me, and then just stays away.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.