Dark Places by Reavis Z Wortham

in the tall grass.
    â€œYou’re supposed to have a search warrant for that, Sheriff.”
    â€œNot searching. Lookin’.” Cody stepped inside and emerged minutes later and returned to the car. He gave a little wave that Marty acknowledged by thumping a butt in their direction. Cody shifted into gear, backed into the road, and headed toward town.
    â€œThe truck?”
    â€œNary a dent.”

Chapter Ten
    I was sitting alone at the top of the bleachers in our WPA gym, eating my sandwich and reading, when Cale Westlake and his friends saw me. They were going past the double doors on the Home side to find a place to smoke, and I doubt they’d have noticed me at all, except I took that exact moment to turn the page.
    Cale came in to initiate the tired old ceremony that millions of boys have seen in their lifetimes. “Hey. Looky here, boys, what we have. It’s little Mouse, all alone and huddled up.”
    He was pretty much right about the little part. I was still the smallest kid in my grade. “Why don’t you mosey on off and leave me alone?”
    â€œI don’t think I want to. This is my gym too.” He shifted from one foot to the other beside the wall separating the bleachers and the hard maple basketball court laid in the 1930s.
    The Toadies, Frankie, Harlan, and Rex climbed up the two steps from the floor, scattered at the half-landing, and sifted upward through the bleachers. They settled around me like birds on tree branches. I put my sandwich down on the wax paper because I knew lunch was over. I should have been afraid, but I’d already seen them all run from a monkey and screaming like girls. I realized I wasn’t as scared as I was before.
    Frankie reached for my library book about a wisecracking private eye.
    â€œWhatcha’ reading, professor? A monkey primer?” He snickered at his own weak wit.
    I yanked it out of reach. “Nothing you’d be interested in. There ain’t no pictures, and all the words have more than three letters.” I felt pretty good about that one. The book’s character could have said that.
    Cale stayed where he was, glaring upward. “Think you’re pretty tough now, Mouse?”
    I remembered how they ran away at the Ordway house. “Tougher’n you. I know about you and Pepper that night I got caught.”
    Something came over Cale’s face. “What do you know? What’d she tell you?”
    â€œYou don’t get to know what we talk about.” Snapping the cover closed, I stood to leave and the others rose around me.
    On the gym floor several rows below, Cale stepped into the bleachers’ entrance, blocking the opening. “He scared us.”
    â€œ I wasn’t scared.” It was an outright lie. That monkey terrified me.
    â€œ You didn’t see him.”
    The conversation was confusing. “What are you taking about?”
    Cale set his jaw. “John T.”
    â€œHe wasn’t there.”
    â€œWe saw him. Me and Pepper.”
    â€œNo he wasn’t. And what if he was?” I started downward. “I’m gonna go.”
    â€œI’m not finished with you yet, Mouse.”
    â€œAll right, guys. I give, if that’s what you want. I’m outnumbered, so you’re the winners.” I stepped over the narrow bleacher in front of me, and down. As my foot landed, I was nose to nose with Rex. My foot slipped and the downhill momentum caused me to bump into him. Rex tripped and went a-flying backwards to land in a heap at Cale’s feet.
    Seeing it as an act of war, Frankie swung a punch toward my stomach. I instinctively moved the book to waist level. His fist hit it with a solid thunk, knocking me off balance again. He hissed, shaking his hand like it was broke.
    Harlan swung too, but I was off balance and he completely missed. Barely staying on my feet, I bounced down the bleachers to the bottom like a ping pong ball. Catching myself with my