Jackal by Jeff Stone

Author:Jeff Stone [Stone, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-375-98761-8
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2014-09-22T16:00:00+00:00

It was 4:30 p.m. by the time I found my mountain bike beneath the pine tree in the fern grove. It was getting down to the wire time-wise, but instead of grabbing my bike and hitting the trail, I headed for the mushroom patch. I needed to find the rake.

I realized that there was a good chance it could be traced back to me or my parents. I was wearing full-fingered riding gloves at the moment, but the rake likely had my fingerprints on it from handling it earlier. It probably had my mother and father’s fingerprints on it, too; it definitely had DaXing’s fingerprints from when he threw it at me. The rake could also have some of his blood on it, as well as skin or other tissue on the tines.

I needed to get it back.

I recalled the rake hitting my helmet after DaXing and I rolled out of the stinkhorn patch, and I had to think for a minute before I found it. The rake did indeed have some blood on the handle, as well as creepy bits dangling from the ends of the tines. I gave it a quick wipe-down with some leaves, then hit the trail.

Hard.

I raced back to the parking lot with the rake in one hand. It was nearly five p.m. when I pulled up beside the limo and knocked on the half-open driver’s-side window to wake up Michael. He took one look at me with the rake and nearly jumped out of his seat.

He lowered the window. “What the heck are you trying to do, give me a heart attack? I thought you were the Grim Reaper!”

“The Grim Reaper carries a scythe,” I said. “Not a mini rake.”

“Whatever,” he said. “It still ain’t right. Have you seen yourself? You’re a mess.”

I glanced down at my arms, legs, and torso. He was right, I was a mess.

Michael sniffed the air through his open window and made a funny face. “What’s that awful smell?”

“I accidentally fell into a patch of stinkhorn mushrooms.”

“What the heck were you and your girlfriend doing out there? You’re dirtier than your bike.”

“Clawing at stream banks,” I lied. “We were looking for old Native American arrowheads. We just used our bikes to get to the spot faster. She rode in from a different trail.”

That seemed to satisfy him. “Oh,” he said. “That’s pretty cool. Did you have any luck?”

“I found one thing, but I’m going to let her keep it.”

“What a gentleman. I hope it was worth all the trouble.”

“Trouble?” I asked, looking around. There was no one else in the parking lot.

“I don’t mean trouble with somebody else, I mean trouble with me. I can’t let you get into the limo like that.”

“But how am I supposed to get home?”

“I don’t know. Call your folks, maybe?”

I frowned. “Don’t you have a tarp or blankets or something in the trunk?”

“This isn’t an emergency tow truck,” Michael said. “I don’t have anything like that. You don’t happen to have a change of clothes inside that grubby backpack, do you?”

I shook my head, and my mind began to race.

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