The Last Domino by Adam Meyer

The Last Domino by Adam Meyer

Author:Adam Meyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2010-12-06T00:00:00+00:00


My sneakers crunched on dead leaves and fallen branches as we plowed through the still woods. I curled and uncurled my fingers to keep the blood moving, watching the silver slopes of the mountains disappear beyond the tree line. Next door to Daniel’s house, a wrinkled face peeked out the window, and then a hand slipped a pair of glasses into place on a jagged nose. It was the woman I’d seen out with her dog, Alfie, a few nights before.

“Is that Mrs. Barker?” I asked.

“Mrs. Bonkers is more like it. She’s a regular fruit loop.” Daniel started walking a little faster, or maybe I was going slower, because he was soon half a dozen yards ahead. “Are you coming or what?”

“Your mom might’ve caught us,” I said, hurrying after him.

“She didn’t.”

“What about your dad? What if he notices the gun’s missing?”

“He won’t.”

I’d forgotten about Koryn, at least for a little while. But as I walked the memories came flooding back, along with the image of P.J.’s car and that perfect windshield.

“You’ve got to stop thinking about her,” Daniel said.

“I’m not.”

“What, then?” He studied me. “P.J.?”

“He still wants his money tomorrow.”

“We’ll take care of it. Meet me at school early tomorrow, eight o’clock, and you won’t have any more problems with him. I promise.” Part of me wanted to know what he had in mind, but another part was so tired of worrying that I decided to trust him.

“Now forget school, dude, ’cause we’re gonna have some fun,” he said.

I nodded, willing to try. “But we don’t even have any cans.”

“No shit, Sherlock. Guess we’ll need a different target.”

Instead of going straight up the incline again, Daniel veered off through the pine trees. In the distance, the tall stalks of a cornfield quivered. About fifty yards short of the cornfield, narrow lumps of raw earth were arranged like a series of speed bumps.

As we got closer, I saw that beyond the empty rows were dozens of pumpkins with long, ropy vines stringing them together. Some were nearly perfect, while others were bloated and misshapen.

“We need targets, right?” Daniel asked.

I broke into an unexpected grin. “But we can’t take these.”

“There’s a million of them. They won’t miss three or four.”

We climbed around in the rows, until Daniel hefted a pumpkin about the size of a basketball. I found one that was as big as a Thanks-giving turkey. Its orange skin was even, the ridges of pumpkin flesh lightly crusted with dirt. The vine along the top pulled away easily, but when I rolled the pumpkin into my arms, I felt a mushy spot along the bottom.

“Shit,” I said, letting it roll away.

Daniel laughed. “Come on already. We haven’t got all day.”

I quickly settled on a couple of midsized pumpkins and carried them in my arms. When we arrived at the spot where we’d shot the cans, I almost didn’t recognize it, since we’d come from the opposite direction.

“Let’s set ’em up,” he said.

We lined up the four pumpkins on a mostly-flat boulder in descending size order.



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