The Journey Back by Priscilla Cummings Page A

person I had ever seen.
    â€œSo what’s crackin’?” he asked, fixing his eyes on me hard, like I had a hell of a nerve to breathe and be in the same room with him.
    Of course, I didn’t know what the heck he was talking about, but already I didn’t like his attitude and I was
not—
I repeat
not
—gonna be pushed around by any punk kid at that place.
    â€œWhat’s
crackin’
?” I repeated his question and stared back at him. “Maybe your head will be
crackin’
in a minute.”
    Boy, that got him fired up. He lunged forward and tried to take a punch at me right then, right there in the office during orientation! Mr. R. had to step in quick and put Tio in a headlock. “You just signed your name to a paper there where you acknowledged this is a
hands-off
program!” he hollered. “Do you have any idea what that means?”
    Tio didn’t reply. He looked like a big June bug wriggling around and trying to swing his arms, but Mr. R. had him locked up tight.
    â€œEveryone here has a right to be treated with respect!” Mr. R. yelled.
    Tio strained to look up, but Mr. R. had him facing down. Still, I could tell that Tio had zero respect for me. So I made it mutual. And that was the beginning.
    â€”
    Wow. I must have fallen asleep there in the bushes. It wasn’t very restful sleep though ’cause I was leaning against a tree and the rough bark made ridges on the side of my face. When I woke up everything was pretty quiet, except for a couple frogs croaking away. You could also hear the slight murmur of the nearby river. The campfire was out. The only thing I smelled was the vague garbage odor from my own clothes. I heard an owl hoot and I kind of smiled ’cause I liked the sound. Reminded me of listening to owls when I slept on the back porch at Grampa’s farm, or camped out with my friends, J.T. and Brady. Could have been that owl woke me up. Bet he was hungry, too. A gentle breeze rustled the bushes. I rubbed at the sore ridges on my face, but the first thing I really thought about was food.
    They say you don’t make good decisions when you’re tired or hungry. Well, I was both. But I had to at least check out those campers, didn’t I? See what they had?

CHAPTER SEVEN
----
    HARDEN THE HEART
    S lowly, I baby-stepped through the shadows, trying not to crunch any leaves or make any noise. Lucky for me, there was a good bit of moonlight. Between the tree branches, I could see it reflect off the water, making a sparkly silver path across the Potomac River. When I got close to the campsite I kneeled down. I was close enough to see a few glowing embers from a dying fire and make out the silhouettes of two different tents. To my right, not far away, several bicycles leaned against the trees, almost all of them with saddlebags over the rear wheels.
    I crept over to the bikes and ran my hands over one. I didn’t feel a lock or a chain on it. Guess these campers thought they were safe out in the woods. I explored all the saddlebags looking for food, but no luck. I went back to the bike on the outside of the pile and could tell from the fat, knobby tires and the tread that it was a mountain bike. I knew a kid back at school had a mountain bike with twenty-four gears that cost like over a thousand dollars. He let me ride it once, over a cornfield, down a gully, and into the woods. It was awesome.
    In the dark, the mountain bike’s metal handlebars were cool and smooth beneath my fingers. The bike had the twist shifter instead of the trigger kind. You twisted back for easier gears, forward for the harder ones.
    Quietly, I picked that bike up and moved it a few feet to the trail.
    Looking back at the camp, I suddenly noticed that overhead, hanging by a rope in a tree, were several backpacks. That would be their food, I guessed, strung up to keep it away from critters. With my eyes, I followed the line of rope to where it was anchored to a